Rain postpones, shortens POC Med Golf Classic at Windsor Golf Club

Overnight rain delayed Friday’s opening round of the inaugural POC Med Golf Classic at Windsor Golf Club and has shortened the women’s tournament to 36 holes.

The event, part of the LPGA’s qualifying Symetra Tour, was set to begin Friday morning and continue today and Sunday with 54 holes of golf.

But two inches of rain overnight Thursday and Friday morning made the course unplayable for first-round tee-off Friday morning, tour spokesman Bret Lasky said.

Officials from the tour and the Windsor course superintendent assessed the greens and fairways just after 6:30 a.m. Friday and determined that there would be no first-round play.

“It’s unfortunate, but there is nothing we can do about Mother Nature,” Chief Business Officer Mike Nichols said in a statement announcing the delay. “The staff at Windsor Golf Club is committed to working around the clock to get the golf course back in championship form.”

The tournament is now scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. today and will be 36 holes. The 144-player field will still compete for a total tournament purse of $100,000. The winner will earn $15,000 after Sunday’s final round.

The top 10 players on the Symetra Tour’s money list at the end of the season in October earn LPGA Tour membership for 2018. The POC Med Golf Classic is the tour’s fourth event of the 2017 season and seven of the current top 10 on the money list are in the field.

It’s the first time the women’s pro tour has been in Northern California since 2001, when Beth Bauer won the California Futures Classic in Patterson. Symetra’s current West Coast swing started in Beaumont with the IOA Championship two weeks ago, then moved to Mesa last week for the Gateway Classic.

It’s been even longer since Windsor hosted pro golf. The men’s Hogan Tour (later called the Nike Tour and Web.com Tour), a similar qualifying tour for the PGA, played here from 1990 to 1995.

Initially, the Symetra tour’s commitment to Windsor is only for a year, because the seed money comes from a partnership with the Taiwan LPGA, which wanted to sponsor a third tournament in the western U.S. Women’s golf is growing in popularity in Taiwan.

Windsor town, tour officials and golf aficionados are hopeful the event will become an annual affair.

Tour and course officials will continue to assess playing conditions throughout the weekend.

For the most up-to-date information on the tournament, visit @Road2LPGA on Twitter or www.symetratour.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.