Bad weather delays the start of day three of the US PGA Championship

By Phil Casey, PA Golf Correspondent, Charlotte

Rory McIlroy faced a lengthy wait to resume his bid for back-to-back major titles after bad weather delayed the start of the third round of the US PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.

Scattered thunderstorms forced tournament organisers to delay the start of play until 11:43am local time (16:43pm Irish time), with the players sent out from both the first and 10th tee in groups of three instead of two.

Play had been due to get under way at 8:15am local time on Saturday but was suspended moments before American Max Greyserman was set to hit the first shot.

Greyserman made the halfway cut on the mark of one over par along with Masters champion McIlroy, despite it emerging that the driver he had planned to use had been deemed non-confirming by the United States Golf Association (USGA) on Tuesday, forcing the world number two to use a replacement.

It is not uncommon for normal wear and tear to render a club non-conforming by going over the allowable limit for the spring-like effect of the clubface.

“This is something that happens week to week on the PGA Tour,” Johnson Wagner, the former Tour winner, told PGA Championship Radio.

“It’s unfortunate this has happened in the week of a major and might have cost him a few shots – but he has done nothing wrong at all.”

Defending champion Xander Schauffele, who had been due to partner McIlroy for the third day in succession at Quail Hollow, experienced a similar issue during the 2019 Open and was furious that it became public.

Schauffele’s driver was one of 30 selected for random testing at the start of the week at Royal Portrush and found to be non-compliant, forcing him to use a different club in the first round before making adjustments to the original for rounds two and three.

“The R&A, they p***ed me off because they attempted to ruin my image by not keeping this matter private,” Schauffele said at the time.

“This is me coming out and treating them the exact way they treated me. The only time I am an unhappy camper is when I feel like I’m treated unfairly.

“It is an unsettling topic. I’ve been called a cheater by my fellow opponents. It’s all joking, but when someone yells ‘cheater’ in front of 200 people, to me it’s not going to go down very well.”