PGA Tour rules official explains RBC Heritage mess: "We did not expect that"
PGA Tour rules official Gary Young has attempted to explain why the final round tee times of the RBC Heritage were not brought forward.
PGA Tour rules official Gary Young says tournament officials 'did not expect thunder and lightning' at the 2024 RBC Heritage.
The signature event was forced into a Monday finish after inclement weather delayed play by more than two-and-a-half hours at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head.
It meant world number one and recent Masters champion Scottie Scheffler had to wait 24 hours to collect his fourth victory in five starts and another winner's cheque for $3,600,000.
A number of golf fans on X put the PGA Tour on full blast after not bringing the final round tee times forward having looked at the forecast for Sunday afternoon.
Even one of their own players described the decision as 'an absolute joke'.
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But the aforementioned Young attempted to explain the Tour's thinking to a group of reporters on Sunday evening.
"We had a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms," he said.
"We did have a 70 to 80 percent chance of rain, but we were only looking at about four tenths of an inch that he was predicting, anywhere from four tenths to six tenths of an inch.
"The golf course was really very dry. We felt that could handle it easily.
"It actually held up very well through the rain that we got, but it was really the thunder and lightning that put us down. We did not expect that."
Young added: "Our meteorologist Stewart Williams felt that the front would be to our south when we came in in the morning, so we would be on the cooler side of the front, and it would keep the probability of thunderstorms down quite a bit.
"Unfortunately when we arrived this morning, the front had stalled to our north, which kept us on the warmer side and allowed for the temperatures to warm up, and of course late in the day we saw the thunderstorms develop."
This is not the first signature event that has been disrupted by the weather.
In January, the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was cancelled, making Wyndham Clark the winner.
It was all the more embarrassing given their LIV Golf League rivals play 54-hole events.
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