Barclays Scottish Open delayed due to severe downpour, Graeme McDowell, Peter Whiteford and Scott Jamieson lead
The Barclays Scottish Open has been delayed to 1400 BST today, Saturday, June 9, due to severe flooding of the course. The Castle Stuart was hit by torrential downpour the previous night and the officials declared the conditions on the course as critical.
The course was so badly soaked that none of the spectators or players were allowed to step on it.
Championship director Peter Adams said, "We're keeping the course closed until further notice, but are doing everything we can to make it playable and if we can ensure it is safe for everybody we will open later in the day. It's such a shame because we were
on course to have 50,000 people for the week. It might even have got up to 60,000 and if we had done that in the first year here it would have been fantastic."
Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell came out to be the overnight leader alongside Peter Whiteford and Scott Jamieson with 11-under, of what is considered as the warm up event before the third major of the season, The Open Championship at Royal St. George’s,
Sandwich.
This is the first time the event has been brought to Castle Stuart, primarily because of its link-styled layout, which is considered to be closer to the Royal St. George’s. The course is proving to be far easier than anticipated although the European Tour
officials have turned down the criticism citing the abrupt change in weather as the real reason behind low scores.
The event is now likely to be curtailed to a possible 56 holes depending on the number of players left to complete their rounds. There is an option to extend the event to Monday but that solely depends on the conditions on Sunday.
Some 30 players from the event will be heading straight to the Open Championship after finishing off their engagement here at Castle Stuart. Players are provided with an option of flying directly to Kent through a chartered aircraft booked specifically for
the purpose, but now it depends on how sooner the players will be available to take off.
European Tour officials were expecting a bumper turnout of spectators for the event, which will now be severely affected by the delay.
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