Within a few minutes of play on Saturday, it looked like Royal Johannesburg had turned into a pond in South Africa. A few players were able to get off the mark in the third round. But the play was soon stopped due to heavy rainfall. That continued throughout the day. And eventually, the DP World Tour made a surprising announcement.

As confirmed by their official X account, “Play has been abandoned for the day and will restart on Sunday at 06:30 local time. The tournament will now be played over 54 holes. #DunhillChamps”

Considering how much of the third round was still left to play, they couldn’t squeeze it into the Sunday schedule. Hence, the tournament officials decided to cut the event by 18 holes.

Interestingly, as per AccuWeather, the reports for Sunday also reveal that there might be a couple of hours of rain. Hopefully, the tournament is not affected further because of it.

Speaking about cancelling the round, the tournament director, David Williams, expressed how difficult it was to come to the decision.

“It’s tough when you have to do this. But we suspended twice this morning, and the course became unplayable again very quickly. Particularly the lower-laying holes. Because it has been raining throughout the day, and there is more on its way, we’ve taken the decision to suspend the third round. We’re going to restart tomorrow at 6:30 (local time). There are still about five or six games to tee off. But the third round will be the final round.”

Despite their best efforts, Williams expressed that the conditions on the course got progressively worse. And they lost control of making it playable enough to host a professional DP World Tour event.

Pictures shared from the course show that there was a lot of waterlogging on some parts of the fairways and greens. That would have made it impossible for players to get the ball off the grass.

That said, what did the scoreboard look like when the third round was suspended?

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Will the weather have a drastic effect on the leaderboard of the Alfred Dunhill Championship?

After two rounds of action, Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra had picked up a great two-stroke lead. Going into the weekend, he had 36 holes to defend that. However, with the third round cancelled, he will now only have 18 holes to play to secure the victory. That gives him a huge advantage.

On the flipside, Jayden Schaper will have a disadvantage going into the final round. He had the opportunity to overtake the Spaniard on the weekend. However, with the Saturday round cancelled, Schaper’s chances of overtaking the in-form Chacarra have gotten slim.

Three strokes behind the leader, Braden Grace and John Parry will also have a taller mountain to climb on Sunday. It was already quite challenging for them, considering how Chacarra was dominating the field on Thursday and Friday. But with the format cut to 54 holes, they will have to produce something magical if they want to overtake the former LIV Golf pro.