Carly Booth pulled a short straw yesterday.
Playing in her first major, the Scot, who has won twice on the Ladies' European Tour, was among an unlucky 36 players who started their second rounds at the Ricoh Women's British Open at Royal Liverpool before the event was halted by winds gusting up to 60mph.
Booth, who shot 77 in the first round, only got as far as the third hole of her round, the 12th, before play was suspended. By 11am, Scotland's Susan Simpson, the Ladies' Golf Union's head of operations, made the decision to wipe out the day's scores. At 2pm, she finally ruled out play for the day.
Booth was in a group with the US Solheim Cup player Michelle Wie. "It's been a long day," the Hawaiian declared at 2.30pm. "When I arrived at the course at 5am it was raining sideways. I've never seen anything quite like it.
"It was fairly sheltered by the tents when we set off but by the time we got to the 12th it was clearly unplayable. The balls would barely stay on the tee and they were moving all over the greens, sometimes as much as 70ft. When you have to call a rules official six times on a green then you know it's bad.
"I'm so tall I felt like a flagpole. I thought I might fall over when I tried to hit the ball and it was definitely the right thing to call it off. We told the officials at the 12th that we really couldn't play any more.
"If we had kept going, I think a score under 90 would have been great. But I hope we still get to complete four rounds. This is the British Open after all so I'd be happy to stay on until Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or whatever."
Simpson still hopes to squeeze in 72 holes by tomorrow evening and defended the decision to send out the first 12 groups. "The course was playable when we started but then the wind rose and play was not possible on the exposed holes close to the sea," she said. "Extending play until Monday is an option but we would obviously far prefer to finish on Sunday."
It is not the first time a day's play has been wiped out at Royal Liverpool – it happened at the 1980 Merseyside International Open – and the 2006 US Women's Open lost the entire first day due to fog at Newport, Rhode Island.
Catriona Matthew, who opened with a 76, was the more fortunate of the two Scots. She was due to start at 11.50am so did not even have to leave her hotel.
In order to try to finish play by tomorrow night, the cut has been reduced from the top 65 and ties to the top 50 and ties. The intention is to play rounds three and four tomorrow with a two-tee start and no redraw after the third round.
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