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Tiger Woods stepped out of the clubhouse at Congressional and into a strange new world of quiet Saturday. No one called out his name. No one pushed against the ropes and held out a cap for him to sign. No one was there.
The third round of the AT&T National was closed to spectators and volunteers for safety reasons after a powerful wind storm left large trees upended across the golf course. Mark Russell, the PGA Tour's vice president of rules and competition, could not remember another time when a tour event did not allow fans.
"It's too dangerous out here," Russell said. "There's a lot of hanging limbs. There's a lot of debris. It's like a tornado came through here. It's just not safe."
But when the third round got under way after a six-hour delay, only 16 people were in the bleachers behind the tee. Six of them were essential volunteers. The other 10 worked in a support capacity for the tournaments, such as supplying telecommunications.
The early morning was filled with the sound of chain saws as crews set out to remove more than 40 trees that had been uprooted, including a 75-foot tree that crashed across the 14th fairway. By afternoon, when the temperature began another climb toward 100, it sounded like a quiet afternoon in the park.
Much of the damage was caused by a weather phenomenon called a derecho (duh-RAY'-choh), a long-lived straight line wind storm that sweeps over a large area at high speed. Stewart Williams, the PGA Tour's meteorologist, said the wind reached 80 mph Friday night, and the derecho was capable of doing the same amount of damage as an F-1 tornado.
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