The NTT DATA Pro-Am, the third tournament of the HotelPlanner Tour season, has changed its format and will now be played over 54 holes after the first round scheduled for this Thursday was cancelled at the Fancourt Golf Estate due to persistent rain.
Heavy rainfall during Wednesday night and Thursday morning left large areas of the three courses at the complex —The Links, Montagu, and Outeniqua— waterlogged. After a total delay of six hours and without play starting, the organisers decided to cancel the day entirely.
With this adjustment, the tournament will begin on Friday morning and will be played on the Montagu and Outeniqua courses. After the second round on Saturday, a cut will be made at the end of 36 holes, and the final round on Sunday will be played, as planned, on the Montagu. The Links is the course that has had the most problems due to the rainfall.
The tournament director, Gary Butler, explained the reasons for the cancellation and the change of format: “It is a sad decision to cancel any round of golf, but this morning we arrived knowing that rain was forecast overnight, and that was the case.” Butler detailed that 18 millimetres of rain fell overnight, “in addition to the rain accumulated during the week and last weekend.”
The organisers were hoping for an improvement early on, but the situation did not change: “We thought the rain would ease by 8:00, so we planned to resume at 9:45, with a three-hour delay from the original schedule. Unfortunately, during those three hours, it continued to rain steadily.”
As the hours passed, the operational margin was exhausted: “It reached a point where we needed quite a few hours to prepare the course. We kept delaying by an hour and then two, until we reached 12:45, which meant a six-hour delay. After consulting with the head greenkeeper, we felt the course had gone too far to get a full day in today.”
Therefore, the final modification was adopted: “It was decided to change the format and have the players now compete on Outeniqua and Montagu. This gives us a better option, if we were to have further rain delays, to complete 54 holes before the end of Sunday.”
The priority, in any case, is for the tournament to conclude within the scheduled calendar despite weather conditions that have already marked, from the first day, the development of a key week at the start of the HotelPlanner Tour season.
Eleven Spanish golfers are participating in the tournament: Javier Barcos, Pablo Ereño, Joel Mosatel, Adri Arnaus, Borja Virto, Alfredo García Heredia, Víctor Pastor, Santi Tarrio, Albert Boneta, Lucas Vacarisas, and Asier Aguirre. As for non-Spanish participation, the most notable figure is Ernie Els, who was scheduled to play one of the days with his nephew Jovan Rebula.
