High winds cancel Friday's play at Women's British

Hoylake, England – The second round of the Women's British Open was canceled on Friday due to heavy wind.

The round will resume on Saturday morning and the plan is to play 36 holes on Sunday.

There was some play on Friday but the heavy wind gusts, which reached as high as 60 mph, forced the suspension of play. Balls weren't staying on greens and in some cases, balls were even falling off tees.

The first groups out reached the fifth hole, but, even before play was called for the day, a decision was made by rules officials that those scores would be considered "null and void," based on Rule 33-2d.

"The competitors began their round in extremely adverse weather conditions and conditions subsequently worsened despite our belief that they would remain stable," said LGU Tournament Director, Susan Simpson in a statement. "It would have been unfair to those competitors not to declare play null and void and cancel all scores for the round in question."

Wiping out scores when play gets called for the day is common, but the decision to start from scratch, even if play resumed later on Friday, was rare.

The LPGA Tour tweeted, "Nullifying scores is not unprecedented. It also occurred at the 2001 LPGA Champions Classic and 2003 Samsung World Championship."

The rarity hardly mattered once play was called for the day.

One of the most obvious displays of how poor conditions were occurred in the Suzann Pettersen/Cristie Kerr/Erina Hara threesome.

"I think the girl that was playing in Suzann Pettersen's group, Suzann, Cristie Kerr and her, they had quite a bit of trouble on the green," said Simpson, referring to Hara on either the 12th or 13th green. "Ultimately, I think the ball moved from being about a 10-inch putt to something in the region of about six foot."

Hara had to attempt the 6-foot putt instead of the short one.

"We had to then mark the ball where it had ended up after the wind had blown it, which understandably, she wasn't too happy with," said Simpson.

Pettersen applauded the decision on Twitter.

"The sport we played this morning had nothing to do with golf. Right decision is made now," she tweeted.

So Yeon Ryu, last year's U.S. Women's Open champion, was in one of the early groups and made a bogey, but that won't hurt her now. She remained in first along with Haeji Kang.

Jiyai Shin, the 2008 Women's British champion, survived a 9-hole playoff Monday at the Kingsmill Championship and came out in round one with a 1-under 71.

Karrie Webb, a 7-time major winner and 2002 winner of this championship at Turnberry, also had a 71 on Thursday.

The pair is knotted in third place with Ai Miyazato, 16-year-old English amateur Charley Hull, Vicky Hurst, Katie Futcher, Mika Miyazato, Stacey Keating and Lydia Hall.

Two-time defending champion Yani Tseng opened with an even-par 72 and is part of a large group tied for 12th place.

Kerr, Angela Stanford, Evian Masters winner Inbee Park, Morgan Pressel and Lydia Ko, the 15-year-old amateur who became the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history a few weeks ago when she won the Canadian Women's Open, are part of a large group tied with Tseng.

NOTES: Tee times are scheduled for 10 minutes earlier than the first two rounds on Saturday.