126 - It's Raining Again...

The Bay Hill logo is an umbrella which is very appropriate considering the weather they have been having in Florida over the last couple of days. The Arnold Palmer Invitational event should have come to a conclusion on Sunday afternoon but torrential downpours have put an end to that. Footage from the competition highlighted just how bad things were when it was difficult to differentiate the lakes from the waterlogged fairways.

The rain came at a good time for Ernie Els who looked to be cruising towards his second event win in as many outings but he hit a bogey and a double bogey on the last holes played before the heavens opened. The Big Easy looked decidedly uneasy as he limped around the back nine on his final round and was no doubt glad the weather turned to give him a chance to get his head together again.

It was satisfying to see that it isn’t just this country that has bad weather. Before the rain the players were wearing short sleeves but I never got the impression that the conditions were anything close to perfect. Then again, warm and overcast in Florida is infinitely preferable to freezing cold with horizontal rain getting drilled into your face in Merseyside.

I am supposed to be going to a local private course that my friend (and one of my golf mentors) has recently joined but the last three times I’ve arranged to go the weather has been spectacularly bad. We’ve endured heavy rain, gale force winds and the pièce de résistance, inches and inches of snow. I thought global warming was going to improve the weather not ruin it completely.

I think rain – more precisely heavy rain – is the worst type of weather to play golf in for me. The fairways become ball swallowing quagmires, the greens become mini lakes and you get soaked to the skin (unless you are rich and smug enough to buy some of that gorgeous Galvin Green clobber). It is a certainty that you are caught miles away from shelter with just a brolley for protection. Give me overcast Florida any day.