The 2023 PGA Championship did not get underway at the scheduled 7 a.m. Eastern starting time on Thursday from Oak Hill Country Club near Rochester, New York, and no one was particularly shocked.
The PGA of America's men's major championship and the second of the calendar year on the PGA Tour schedule was delayed by a frost delay. With temperatures dipping below the freezing mark overnight and not getting above 40 degrees ahead of dawn, it was clear there was going to be a frost delay due to frozen surfaces and ground underneath the turf at the Donald Ross-designed gem.
After several evaluations of the golf course and the facilities, which remained closed to players throughout the early morning, the PGA of America announced there would be a 1 hour, 50 minute delay to the start of the tournament. The first-round tee times will start on No. 1 at 8:50 a.m. Eastern, while the 10th tee starting times will kick off at 8:55 a.m. Eastern, marking a five-minute difference between the tees that was not originally planned.
This means all tee times for the first round will be pushed back by that 110 minutes of delay for this morning. It makes it more unlikely that the 156-player 2023 PGA Championship field will complete the first round of play on Thursday, as the last tee time goes off at 4:32 p.m. With five hours of golf needed for most tee times in threesomes on the PGA Tour, a spillover to Friday morning for at least a handful of groups is all but guaranteed.
However, most golf observers knew this was possible. When the PGA of America announced that they would be shifting the date of the annual PGA Championship from August to May, they had already announced Oak Hill as the 2023 host venue with the expectation that it would host the championship in the summer. However, they didn't want to take away the hosting opportunity with a potentially volatile weather situation in play in May, so this was a possibility.
The good news is that the weather forecast looks significantly warmer for the rest of the week, making any further frost delays unlikely.
