re: Would you have allowed Rory's group to play up...?

Which sounds like what they intended to do without the interference of the pga officials.

No. I would not have let them hit their tee shots. This was poorly handled by the PGA, and in my opinion it served as a major distraction to Phil and Ricky. It appeared to me that the PGA was more concerned about completing the tournament on Sunday to satisfy CBS. As far as I'm concerned it was total BS.

Exactly. And rory was 3 feet away from hitting it in the water. Rory was in a great position, but the tournament wasn't over. Phil, Rickie and Rory knew that.

Yes, I would have.

The PGA made a huge mistake by not pushing up all tee times in the morning. On Saturday they knew that they were in serious danger of bad weather and of not finishing the round on Sunday. They should have taken preventative measures... All they needed to do was push up all the tee times an hour or so.

I think some of the complaints I heard last night on TGC were misguided. They were saying, "We have never seen 4 players play up on the same hole at the same time to complete a major." Okay smart guys, please let me know when a major has ever been suspended on Sunday night to wait for exactly 1 grouping to play one hole? We all would have been complaining about the unfairness of Rory having to sleep over night to wait on one hole. Rickie and Phil would have had to show back up this morning hoping for a playoff while watching Rory hit irons all the way down the 18th hole to fiddle fart his way to a par.

Rory would never bogey that hole if he isn't rushing to the green. He played the short par 5 at -4 in the first three days. In fact, him rushing to finish almost caused him to bogey, so it worked in Phil and Rickie's favor. Phil and Rickie were not affected. No one has argued about the tee shot being hit, the controversey is on the second shot. Phil and Rickie have said that you hope to make eagle and put pressure on Rory. Well both of their second shots were already played before Rory hit his second shot. He knew that Phil had missed the green and Rickie was on the bottom shelf. Those facts were not going to change no matter when Rory hit. I think that Phil and Rickie were not rushed at all to hit their eagle attempts. They knew they needed eagle and the tournament would be won or lost with those shots. As it played out, with Rory rushing to finish, he had a higher chance of bogeying the hole by playing in the dark.

I do feel that Rickie missed his birdie putt because he probably felt rushed, but that didn't change the winner, it only cost Rickie a T2 instead of a 3rd place finish. I feel bad for Rickie for that, but I haven't heard anyone complain about that.

The entire scenario was unprecedented. As I said before, we have never seen a major completed on Monday by 1 player (basically, because Cheeseburger was out of it) to play 1 hole.

whats crazy is that rory hit 3 pretty poor shots before his 2-putt par

and with phil so close to holing his chip, this could have turned out way differently

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Phil or Rickie make eagle, or even birdie

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They both had a chance to stuff it in close on their approach before Rory hit. Neither did. The pressure from birdie would have already been on Rory because he saw their second shots, and had to assume that at worst both Phil and Rickie would make birdie from where they were laying after 2 shots.

I think when Rory sank the birdie on 17 and took a two stroke lead, that the tournament had been won. I know that strange things can happen on the last hole of a major, but their was only about a 5% chance of Rory not winning in regulation after the he left the 17th green. Had the lead only have been one, or had their been a tie, I wonder what would have happened. I bet Rory may have waited until Monday morning, and perhaps Rickie and Phil would have done the same.

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He was a bad bounce from being in the water off the tee

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Because he was rushing to finish. As I stated earlier, I think the rush to finish benefitted Rickie and Phil, not Rory.

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And, I don't think Phil hits a better chip if he gets to hit it 7 minutes earlier.

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That's kind of my point. I think Phil and Rickie actually had to wait about 1, 2 minutes at most. They walked up to their balls, were told that Rory was hitting, then watched him hit. They still had full focus on their eagle attempts, actually even having more confidence that an eagle would put them in a playoff.