Associated Press
Monday, May 29

DUBLIN, Ohio -- Tiger Woods finally met his match at Muirfield Village -- the rain.

The conclusion of the Memorial Tournament, gaining the same soggy reputation as Pebble Beach, was delayed until Monday because of heavy rain that flooded the course and kept Woods from even warming up.

	Sunday was a day for umbrellas rather than golf at Muirfield Village.

The fourth round was to resume at 8 a.m. EDT, with Woods leading Steve Lowery by six strokes.

"Hopefully, I can still win the tournament," Woods said. "It's like taking a day off. You're not going to lose your game in one day. It's not like you're going to struggle to break 90."

It will be the third time this year a tournament has finished on Monday, and Woods has been in the thick of all of them.

He made up seven strokes on his last seven holes to win at Pebble Beach for his sixth tour victory in a row, and he finished one stroke behind Hal Sutton in The Players Championship two months ago.

The Memorial, founded by Jack Nicklaus in 1976, now has had 23 out of 100 rounds that were either delayed, suspended or canceled because of rain. It will be the third time the tournament will end on a Monday.

The tour has a policy that play should always be extended to Monday provided the forecast is good, and the storm that has drenched the course over the weekend is expected to clear out.

"Any time we can play golf, we need to be playing golf," PGA tournament director Ben Nelson said.

Play was suspended at 11:15 a.m., nearly two hours before Woods (17-under 199) and Lowery (205) were to tee off. By late afternoon, 1.7 inches of rain had fallen with more on the way. The only players to squeeze in 18 holes were Corey Pavin and Don Pooley, who finished in under three hours.

Asked where he thought his tournament would be 25 years after it was founded, Nicklaus replied, "Certainly not in a rain delay."

Woods has a 16-2 record in tournaments worldwide in which he has held at least a share of the 54-hole lead, and he couldn't ever remember blowing a lead as large as six strokes.

"What he's done the last two days is unbelievable," Nicklaus said of Woods' 63-65.

His lead is the largest on the PGA Tour in two years, and the largest for Woods since he led by nine strokes after three rounds in the 1997 Masters. He went on to win by 12.

Woods will be going for his 19th PGA Tour victory, and 11th on the PGA Tour in his last 20 events.

But it will have to wait.

Instead of sloshing through the fairways, Woods and everyone else spent most of the day eating, watching television and hamming it up for the cameras.

Outside, rain turned fairways and greens into small ponds. Even the ducks headed in from the course. A small gallery that remained around the 18th green did the wave with their striped umbrellas.

When Woods strolled off Muirfield Village with a six-stroke lead Saturday evening, Kenny Perry said the final round would be nothing more than a walk in the park for the world's No. 1 player.

He didn't mention anything about a swim.