Players gear up for rainy final round at Fortinet Championship

NAPA, Calif. – The Golden State is parched, and the rain is expected to come Sunday for the final round of the Fortinet Championship at Silverado Resort & Spa.

Sunday tee times will be moved to 8-10:12 a.m. Pacific Time, with players sent off two tees in threesomes.

Justin Lower, whose best finish in 28 PGA TOUR starts is a T8 at the Barbasol Championship last season, shot a third-round 69 and at 13 under par will take a one-shot lead over defending champion Max Homa (72) and Danny Willett (72).

It could be a wet final round.

“Yeah, this golf course with a bit of rain, soften it up a little bit might actually help it,” said Willett, the 2016 Masters champion, who never got much going but birdied the par-5 18th hole.

How does he fare in the rain?

“Everyone would probably think I'm pretty good,” he said. “We're all right. We play the Dunhill (Links in St. Andrews, Scotland) most years in average weather.”

With rain comes unpredictability. Leaders can fall way back. Chasers can come from afar.

Ben An shot 71 and is 11 under, two back. Rookie Davis Thompson (65), Paul Haley II (66), Adam Svensson (67) and veteran Matt Kuchar (70) form a quartet at 10 under, three behind.

Homa, who won the Wells Fargo Championship in incessant cold rain at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm earlier this year, also said the rain might make the course somewhat easier.

“I'm from southern California,” Homa said. “I don't know why I play well in the rain, but I do. So, I'm just going to try and do that again tomorrow.”

He’s not the only one looking forward to the challenge.

“It will be fun tomorrow,” said Sahith Theegala (71, 9 under, four back), who is also from Southern California and will be chasing his first PGA TOUR victory after close calls at the WM Phoenix Open (T3) and Travelers Championship (T2) last season. “I love bad conditions.”

Lower also sounded open to some rain after the wind picked up Saturday, further drying out the course and making life considerably trickier for the leaders, who had the late tee times.

“The course is probably the most firm it has been and the wind didn't make it easy,” said Lower, who opened the tournament with a career-low, 9-under 63. “Wind never makes it easy for that matter. I just tried to really keep it as simple as I could, keep it in play, keep it in the fairway because I really think you can score from the fairway.”

Not long ago, Lower thought he’d just missed out on a PGA TOUR card and was destined for the Korn Ferry Tour. He was happy to be wrong and is trying to take full advantage of the opportunity in this, the first week of a 47-tournament season.

“I'm sure I'll be nervous, for sure,” he said, “but just part of it. I mean, it’s why we play. Yeah, it’s just, I don’t know, playing on the PGA TOUR with a chance to win, it’s pretty cool.”