ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — It was dry and sunny at the Old Course on Saturday, a welcome change from the deluge that flooded the links here on Friday and sent the British Open into a tailspin after a soaking three-hour delay.
Yet while the drenching rain clouds did blow out into the North Sea overnight, they were replaced by biting and staggering winds. The powerful gusts, which reached up to 40 miles per hour, sent weathervanes spinning off their poles, golf balls rolling off their greens and an entire tournament careening off its schedule.
In the end, tournament officials declared that — for the first time since 1988 and just the second time in history — the British Open would finish on a Monday, a result of a 10-hour-28-minute delay in play.