Rain, Wind, Cold, Tornado Warnings and After Five Days, a Champion

Cameron Smith, a rising star on the PGA Tour, during the final round of the Players Championship golf tournament.Credit...Gerald Herbert/Associated PressPONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — There was an early omen that this year’s Players Championship, a signature event of the PGA Tour, would radically defy golf tournament convention. It arrived before the sun rose for Thursday’s first round in the form of an ominous-sounding weather delay, delivered as the golfers slept.

In the end, most of them probably felt like they never woke up, as the ensuing five days of golf unfolded like a vengeful nightmare.

“It was brutal out there,” Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner, said of conditions that included…