No gusts, no glory? That’s a tough sell here

Memo to the PGA Tour and organizers of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic: The wind turbines along Interstate 10 near Palm Springs are there for a reason. Wind.

For the second consecutive year, they played the final day of this venerable event on a new course called the Classic Club. It is just north of the freeway in Thousand Palms. Directly south on the other side of the freeway is Palm Desert. If you stand on a high spot on the Classic course, good binoculars reveal windmills turning in the distance.

Great for alternative energy. Lousy for golf.

The pros who played the Classic course Sunday didn’t need binoculars. They knew they were competing in a wind tunnel.

Many said it was the worst wind they have experienced, and those were the former mountain climbers. The weatherman put the winds at 15-20 mph, with gusts up to 40. Mostly, there were gusts.

These touring millionaires like it balmy, temperatures in the 80s, greens holding well but running true. Especially here, where the winning score has been at least 30 under par seven times, and Joe Durant once won at 36 under.

The pros can handle 20 below, but not when it is a windchill factor. They come here to be warm, get their swings unhinged after the winter break and score low. Sunday, they were sand-blasted, and that was when they weren’t even near a trap.

There were whitecaps in the water hazards, even the water hazards that were bubbly little brooks. It was a day of bent flags, marshals wearing gloves you’d expect to see at the Iditarod and little old ladies in parkas, making their way from hole to hole by grabbing on to trees along the way.

One of the bigger hazards for the golfers was not water or sand, but spectators’ caps, blowing onto greens in mid-putt. The wind swirled so much that players, strategizing, spent all day grabbing a clump of grass and tossing it into the air. And that was on the greens.

Robert Allenby, who shot 74 and finished four shots back with his five-round 347 total, played in a short-sleeve shirt all day. So did John Rollins, who lost the tournament in a one-hole playoff to Charley Hoffman. Allenby and Rollins have been nominated for man of the year by Outside magazine.

By the time Rollins had finished his playoff with Hoffman, he had been on the course just shy of 6 1/2 hours. In similar wind and less time, men have died on Everest.

Play was slow because golfers had to back off putts several times on most holes. Their pants would be flapping, their caps coming off, the ball dangerously close to moving as they addressed it. Had it moved, of course, it would have meant a penalty. Justin Rose, who led the tournament for most of its 90 holes before fading with a four-over 76 that included eight 5s and a 6, said he was surprised that didn’t happen, and said he assumed it hadn’t, since it didn’t in his group. Rollins said the same thing.

“It wiggled, but it never moved,” he said.

Rose said the day of golf really wasn’t a day of golf.

“I think the wind was playing us today,” he said. “I think it was a bit of a shame, really, because it was survival more than anything. I don’t think there was a lot of great golf being played out there.”

Examples of that:

* Phil Mickelson got to 14 under at the fourth hole, then hit a stretch where he went double-bogey, bogey, bogey, double-bogey, par, bogey. He finished with 39-39 -- 78, 10 shots out of first.

* Stephen Marino had a 9 on the par-four eighth.

* Paul Stankowski went 6-6-6 on Nos. 13-15.

* Briny Baird had an 8 on the par-five No. 18, his ninth hole, giving him a front nine of 42. That was three shots better than the back nine of Kevin Na of Diamond Bar, whose last six holes were 5-5-5-7-4-6, and whose total was 80, four shots fewer than Dean Wilson’s high round of the day.

* Mike Weir, former Masters champion, played his final nine in 48, and he’s from Canada.

Fittingly, the champion, Hoffman, had the best summary of this day of wind and runny noses.

“Usually I go inside and seek shelter,” he said.

Which could be considered a tip for organizers. Once there, they might find a drawing board to go back to.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.