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

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.