By Mark Lamport-Stokes
Atlanta - Tour Championship organisers opened East Lake Golf Club, venue for the final FedExCup playoff event, to the players on Tuesday as the heavy rain which has lashed the area over the last week finally began to ease.
More than 11 inches have been deposited on the par-70 layout in the last seven days, with 3.75 inches saturating the water-logged course on Monday.
Tournament director Todd Rhinehart allowed the players to walk the course and putt on the greens on Monday but the tee boxes and fairways were off limits.
From 1200 local (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, however, East Lake was fully opened to the elite 30-man field as they prepare for Thursday's opening round.
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"It's completely obliterated my whole practice and warm-up schedule for this tournament, so I come in here like I've been injured or something," British Open champion Stewart Cink, an Atlanta resident, told reporters on Tuesday.
"But everybody is in a weird situation here so we'll do the best we can with it."
Cink, who won his first major title by beating fellow American Tom Watson in a four-hole playoff at Turnberry in Scotland, felt the East Lake layout would cope well with heavy rainfall of the last week.
"There are no creeks anywhere on the golf course to overflow, so it's just going to be soggy," the six-times PGA Tour champion said.
"It's not going to be a damage-type flooding situation if it rains here. It's just going to be a soggy mess. And they'll have to redo the bunkers.
"The greens have SubAir under them and they're probably the best greens of the year," added the 36-year-old American. "They're fabulous Bermuda greens, so that won't be affected."
Scattered afternoon thunderstorms have been forecast for the rest of the week at East Lake with conditions expected to clear on Sunday.
Overall, though, the weather is expected to be a significant improvement on the heavy flooding of the last week which has led to eight deaths in Georgia and a state of emergency being declared in 17 counties.
Editing by Jutin Palmer
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