By Joseph White
POTOMAC, Md. (AP) _ Ben Curtis will have to wait at least one more day to get his first victory since the 2003 British Open.
Curtis was routing the field Sunday in the Booz Allen Classic, leading by eight strokes over Padraig Harrington with seven holes to go when play was suspended for the day because of an approaching thunderstorms.
Curtis was on the 12th hole with a score of 23 under, poised to break the tournament record of 21 under. Play was scheduled to resume Monday at 8 a.m. ET.
``I've still got to play my game,'' Curtis said. ``I don't want to go to sleep tonight, `Oh, you've got it won,' because I've still got 6 1/2 holes to go.''
Curtis has led after every round, shooting 62, 65 and 67 on the TPC at Avenel. The low scores are skewed somewhat because the players have been allowed to lift, clean and place their shots on the fairways during the last three rounds. Storms and threats of storms prompted the ruling, but it was really only needed on Sunday, when the heavy rains finally came and postponed the start of play by six hours.
Curtis started the day with a five-shot lead over Brett Quigley, but Quigley's opening tee shot landed against a tree and forced him to play his second shot left-handed. He bogeyed the hole to put Curtis ahead by six, and the lead grew to seven when Curtis sank an eight-foot putt to birdie No. 2.
Curtis cruised from there. No one got closer than six shots the rest of the day. He put dismissed any notion that he might fall back to the rest of the field when he put his approach with six inches for a birdie at the sixth hole. He also made a 25-foot birdie putt on the difficult No. 9 green.
Curtis' worst shot was his last. He put his approach in the creek at No. 12 just before the horn sounded to stop play, setting up what appears will be only his second bogey of the tournament.
In three years since winning the British, Curtis has heard the talk that his victory was a fluke. He has made the cut about half the time since _ 33 times in 67 tournaments _ and his ranking on the money list fell to 141 in 2004 and 129 in 2005. His best finish was third in the Western Open last year.
He has played better in 2006, making the cut in 11 of 15 tournaments, although his best finish was a tie for 20th. He was 57th at last week's U.S. Open, with a 19 over score that is 42 shots worse than his current score at Avenel.
Jon Mills of Oshawa,Ont. sits tied for 33rd after shooting a 1.
For a while, prospects appeared bleak that Curtis would get to play at all Sunday. Officials had hoped to beat the rain by sending the first group off at 7 a.m. _ the same tactic had worked on Saturday _ but incessant downpours made morning play impossible. The start of play was postponed nine times before the sun finally made an appearance, allowing volunteers to squeegee the greens and teeboxes and prepare the course as best they could.
The first drive at the first hole at 1 p.m. was made from a front teebox because the back two were waterlogged _ one of them still had a sizable puddle. Moving the tee forward subtracted some 30 yards from the hole, but the players lost most of that yardage because their drives weren't bouncing high or rolling far on the wet fairways.
The rain was another thumb in the eye for a tournament that next year will be demoted or eliminated. The PGA Tour wants to move the Booz Allen to the fall in 2007, but it won't be played at all if a new title sponsor can't be found. The galleries were already thin Thursday and Friday because the sport's top names took the week off following the U.S. Open, and the weather delay meant that only the truly devoted were on hand to witness the start of play Sunday.
