“We’ve been fortunate we’ve gone 10 years without (being rained out),” said Ollie Nutt, president of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which organizes the golf
tournament. “Some things you can’t control.” The rain subsided later in the morning, but with 68 players having made the cut, tournament officials determined there would not be enough time to make final course preparations and fit in all the rounds. “We had to tee off by 10:45 a.m.,” Nutt said. “There was no way we would have fit it all in.” Dustin Johnson, the 24-year-old who led the field by four strokes after Sunday, was deemed the tournament’s champion and was awarded the $1.1 million prize. Johnson also won the pro-am portion of the tournament with Joe Rice. The final round of the pro-am was also canceled. “We got 54 holes in and we were very pleased,” said Foundation spokeswoman Cathy Scherzer. “We got a terrific young new winner, and we’re very pleased with that.” Johnson, 24, became the AT&T’s youngest winner since Tiger Woods, then 24, won in 2000. John Cook, who won in 1981 at 23, is the youngest ever to win the tournament. Scherzer said the money raised for local charities has not been added up, but it is expected to exceed $6 million. That figure is less than the nearly $6.8 million raised last year, but considering the weak economy and that last year’s total was the most ever raised by the tournament, organizers were pleased.
“Our goal was to keep even with last year,” Scherzer said. “We were hoping to reach that, but it was a lofty goal.”