UPDATE: Winds Whipping, but Tournament Officially Starts

The pin flag on the 11th green bends in the wind before the start of the first round of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Plantation Course at Kapalua on Sunday. Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR.

By Rodney S. Yap

The season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions officially started at 11:10 a.m. with players going off both the first and 10th holes.

The season was originally scheduled to begin on Friday, but high winds forced the cancelation of play before six players in the 30-man field had even teed off. As a result, the entire day was scrapped.

Conditions were again unplayable on Saturday, wiping out play for a second straight day.

With high winds still bearing down on the Plantation Course today, the start of play was delayed four hours before officials made the decision that conditions were good enough to play in — but just barely.

“We’ve slowed the greens down to a point where a ball will come to rest,” said PGA Tour Vice President of Rules and Competition Slugger White. “That helps tremendously.

“We’ll talk to the players and let them know we might have some balls moving out here, but we’ll just have to deal with it.”

White said they would play as many holes as the weather would allow.

Live action can be seen on NBC/The Golf Channel and it doesn’t appears the winds have subsided as players continued to battle the constantly changing conditions. Click here for the Live Leaderboard.

Keegan Bradley, Jonas Blixt, Jason Dufner, Matt Kuchar and Webb Simpson watch th Colts-Raves playoff game while waiting out the delay in the Kapalua Clubhouse. Photo by Chris Reimer/PGA TOUR.