Weather—it’s always a favorite topic of conversation. Watching a thunderstorm from the safety of one’s living room can be awe-inspiring and fascinating, but for a golfer, a sudden thunderstorm can mean extreme danger and split-second decisions on finding the closest available shelter. The LPGA recognizes the importance of keeping players safe, and in April of 2001, the Mobile Weather Team was hired to monitor weather at each tournament site and assist rules officials with determining weather-related suspensions, delays and evacuations.
Thirty-four-year-old Andy Pearman is enthusiastic about weather. A member of the Mobile Weather Team that will work most of the LPGA events this year, Pearman is a May 2000 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Asheville, with a degree in atmospheric sciences and a concentration in weather forecasting. Pearman doesn’t come from a sophisticated “weather channel” background, though. After college, he worked as a weatherman for a local cable access channel in Martinsville, VA, and often made weather graphics with Powerpoint.
The owner of the Mobile Weather Team was so impressed with Pearman’s audition tape that he hired Pearman for his ability to present weather in simple terms to officials who need quick and thorough predictions. It’s not easy work, and the hours are long. “Every day I have to be at an LPGA tournament site an hour and a half before the first tee time. That’s 6:00am. I review the weather data and it takes me 30 to 45 minutes to prepare a forecast for the day. I generally put out two to three forecasts during the day and post the forecast in the players’ locker room.” And Pearman is still on site when the last player walks off the eighteenth green in late afternoon. Unlike tour officials who motor about the golf course in carts or monitor events from a central command area, Pearman is indoors with his equipment, away from the action, and his “office” isn’t usually luxurious. “I’m usually set up in a trailer or someplace in the clubhouse. I’ve been given some unusual work sites. At the Solheim Cup, they put me in a storage closet full of paper towels and napkins!”
Working from two laptops and a receiver connected by cable to his rooftop lightning sensor equipment, Pearman can see via Doppler radar and lightning strike maps just what danger is heading towards the tournament site. His Thorguard lightning prediction system, a rooftop contraption resembling three mixing bowls upside down on a pole, can spot lightning strikes 12 miles away. With this advance knowledge, he can provide 15 to 25 minutes warning time to players and officials of the oncoming bad weather.
With radar and satellite pictures from the National Weather Service, Pearman can create a picture of the golf course’s immediate surroundings using latitude and longitude. Course officials and players want to know about potential bad weather, but they also want to know about wind speed and direction.
“Officials use my wind forecasts to help them determine where to set the pins and holes. If it’s a rainy forecast, they don’t want to set the pin location on a low part of the green. The players always want to know about wind and direction, since it affects their games tremendously, from club selection to shot strategy. I break forecasts down by hours, so I post forecasts at 8:00 and 11:00 in the morning and 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon.”
Television coverage relies heavily on Andy’s work as well. Because rain has impacted 10 of 12 LPGA events so far this year through mid-June’s Giant Eagle Classic in Youngstown, OH, broadcasters have had to scramble to provide live coverage before or after rain delays. Andy tries to advise camera operators and announcers when to tape portions of the tournament. “With the National Weather Service radar, I can receive the information 30 seconds after it is released, and I can zoom in and see which way a rain shower is moving several miles away. If I see a cell headed toward the tournament site, I call the rules official on the radio and give her a heads up and let her know that it is out there about an hour away. As it moves closer to 30 minutes away, the official will come in to look at my radar to see how long and what the intensity of the storm is and whether there is any cell behind it.”
Officials often need as much as 30 minutes advance notice of an approaching storm, since they not only have to get the players off the golf course but also give spectators time to evacuate as well. Most tour sites have an “evacuation and transportation plan” in place in the event of a major storm. Andy posts weather-warning signs if a storm is 30 miles away, and for some golf courses that are spread out over a wide area, people need time to come off the course or find shelter if they are too far away from the clubhouse.
Barb Trammell confirms the need for coordination on the part of course officials and Andy’s forecasting. Barb is the Vice President of Tournament Operations and oversees the rules officials at each tournament. “Adverse weather is the hardest part of our jobs. For the volunteers, we must have 15 to 20 vehicles ready in staging areas to evacuate players, caddies and spectators. A careful plan must be in place for any unexpected event.” Trammell says that bad weather affects a tournament in many other ways too. “A really wet day can certainly affect the rules of golf. Casual water results from saturated fairways, and players must slow the pace of play in order to drop a ball in a drier location. When the pace slows down, we sometimes end up suspending a round because of darkness, and the round must resume the next day.
A number of years ago in Rochester, NY we had to suspend play five times in one round because of lightning and thunder.” Andy Pearman believes weather forecasting and good planning go together. Two years ago at the Corning Classic in NY, the final round on Sunday had to be completed that day, since many LPGA players would leave the following day for England and the British Women’s Open. To his dismay, his radar indicated heavy rain showers in the forecast for Sunday afternoon. His estimated time of the rain’s arrival was sometime after 1:00pm. After a debate among tour officials on a plan of action, it was decided to move Sunday’s tee times up to 7:00am and have players go off the front and back nines. The last ball went into the cup at 2:00pm, and ten minutes after Carin Koch hoisted the winner’s trophy during the closing ceremony, the heavens opened with a fury. Players and officials alike were grateful that day for Pearman’s accurate predictions.
LPGA tour players hate rain delays more than any other weather problem. Stefania Croce, a ten-year tour veteran, says “the hardest thing is when you are not doing well, then you have to wait, then you start thinking about your game and the round.”
Croce also recalls a US Open qualifying round when “thunder was so close it almost made me cry. I do not cry much, but this was scary because we had no place to go.” Beth Bader, a 2001 rookie on the LPGA tour, thinks rain delays affect her more when she IS playing well. “You try not to let it affect you by not thinking about it, but your body starts to get a little tight. Suspensions in general are difficult because it’s a hard call for the tournament officials. It’s tricky because the tournament and sponsors want to get in as much golf as possible, but the officials have to think about the safety of the players and volunteers.”
For Andy Pearman, the best part of weather forecasting for the LPGA tour lies in the challenge. “I get to forecast in a different location every week. It’s a completely different climate, usually in a different part of the country. I don’t deal with the same weather patterns, so it makes my job very interesting. It’s fun for me to travel too. I am on the road with the Tour for 28 weeks a year.” The worst part of “Mr. Weather’s” job involves a heavy responsibility for the safety of golfers and their fans. “I worry about making sure that people won’t be endangered. But I also know too that tournaments don’t want weather delays if they are not necessary. Sponsors and television can lose revenue when we make a decision to delay.”
Prior to Andy’s arrival on the tour, LPGA officials monitored weather situations themselves. A rumble of thunder at a tournament often meant last-minute decisions to evacuate players or close calls when a sudden storm hit while players continued to play. The Mobile Weather Team already had a forecaster stationed for PGA Tour events, and soon the LPGA decided to hire a professional to keep an eye on Mother Nature. They can relax now, at least a little bit. Andy’s on the job.
Susan is a regular contributor to Tee Time Magazine and a freelance writer. Besides playing golf, she enjoys writing about it. She is a published author, with various interviews, feature stories, travel articles, and short fiction to her credit. Susan continues to pursue her dream of writing full time for a golf magazine and also to be able to hit her driver 200 yards, every time.
