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ROCHESTER, NY — The 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill is off to a start no one could have expected when the site was chosen eight years ago.
Monday’s first practice round was postponed until 8 a.m. due to frost.
When the PGA of America awarded Upstate New York’s New York track its fourth PGA Championship in 2015, the tournament was still scheduled for mid-August. Two years later, it was announced that the PGA would be moved to May starting in 2019, helping the PGA Tour finish its season before Labor Day and avoid potential conflict with the Olympics.
A frost delay went from extremely unlikely to almost inevitable for the PGA 105. Rochester averages a low of 48 for May, but temperatures were in the 30s Monday morning and the lows will be in the 30s through Thursday morning.
Justin Thomas even thought it snowed in Rochester three weeks ago.
“That was four weeks ago, shut up! ” A reporter corrected the defending champions on Monday.
The 105th PGA Championship was the last with a northern venue already chosen by the PGA of America when it announced that “Glory’s Last Shot” would become its second major championship of the year. But in the six years since, Aronimink in Pennsylvania and Baltusrol in New Jersey in 2026 and 2029 have been added to the schedule, even though both locations are about five degrees warmer in May on average than Rochester.
“We believe we’ve added more courses than we took in moving into May,” PGA CEO Seth Waugh said Tuesday.
When asked what he thought Northeastern could host more PGA tournaments, Waugh pointed outside the interview tent and pointed to the blue sky.
“How do we look outside now? The course is perfect,” he said. “It’s an outdoor sport, and obviously we’ll be back after this tournament – we haven’t hit a shot yet so we’ll see how it all plays out and then we’ll go back and think about it ourselves and see what the club and the clubs want. the other.”
Rory McIlroy, whose wife is from Rochester and a member of Oak Hill, said he hopes the tournament will return to New York and elsewhere in the Northeast.
“The Northeast is my favorite kind of golf in this country,” he said. “I love the golf courses here and I love the tradition, and a lot of historic golf course architects started their travels here and built some amazing golf courses. It would be a shame if we can’t come back here.”
Thomas added that the cycle may be slightly less than peak condition due to the early season. Oak Hill usually opens on April 1st, but is closed all year to prepare for this tournament.
“You can definitely say it’s probably probably three or four weeks away from being, like, really, really good. The cycle is great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s Rochester, New York, in May,” said Thomas. “You’ll have some unsightly areas around the greens, and maybe some areas of green will differ from others if they’re shaded or otherwise.”
Monday’s frost delay turned out to be insignificant. The pros were wearing shorts and light jackets by the afternoon as the highs reached the high 60s.
Similar conditions persisted Tuesday, although a sharp cold front is set to move in the afternoon and overnight, bringing gusty winds throughout Tuesday afternoon and low temperatures enough to present another chance of frost in the morning. On Wednesday and Thursday.
This may delay the onset [of Thursday’s round]said PGA Championships officer Kerry Hay. “I hope it doesn’t happen. But if it does, we will adapt to it.”
Fortunately, this low appears to be the last minute cold weather for the championship as weekend highs are expected to be in the 70’s.