Tom Ryan, CEO of CVS, left, congratulates Camilo Villegas yesterday at the CVS Caremark Charity Classic. Villegas and Bubba Watson teamed to win the tournament in a three-hole playoff.

The Journal / Bob Breidenbach

BARRINGTON –– Mark Twain had the right idea, but the wrong time frame.

“If you don’t like the weather in New England,” he said, “wait a few minutes.”

It required a wait of a few hours –– four, in fact –– for a pair of severe thunderstorms, which included pounding hail, in addition to copious quantities of lightning, to pass over Rhode Island Country Club yesterday afternoon.

But, before the day was over, the sun was shining brightly over the classic Donald Ross-designed course beside the bright, blue waters of Narragansett Bay –– particularly for the odd couple of Camilo Villegas and Bubba Watson, who racked up three birdies in a hastily-devised, three-hole playoff to win the 10th edition of Billy Andrade’s and Brad Faxon’s annual golfing clambake, best known as the CVS Caremark Charity Classic. “Billy and ‘Fax’ do such a great job with this tournament,” said Villegas, whose ripped and cut physique makes him look more like an NFL defensive back than a PGA Tour golfer.

They do, indeed.

Even if, when the storms came rolling in, they had no idea what they were going to do.

Only the day before, when there was a brief shower that didn’t interrupt play, Andrade had said: “We’ve never had a delay. We’ve never had a stoppage of play.”

Suddenly, yesterday afternoon, they were faced with a lengthy delay.

“Can you believe how bad it was?” Andrade said. “Paul Goydos saw that hail coming down and he was getting nervous. He said: ‘We don’t have that in California.’ ”

Given the severity of the storms, and the amount of water accumulating on the greens and fairways, turning bunkers into small ponds, and making it seem as if a particularly high tide had just receded from the course, it appeared for a while as if play would not resume, and the four teams tied at 15-under through 10 holes would be declared co-champions.

“With the storms coming in,” Faxon said, “we didn’t know what to do.”

They knew they had plenty of daylight left to wait out the bad weather, but several players had travel plans that couldn’t wait.

The team of Laura Diaz and Nicole Castrale had to get to Minnesota for the U.S. Women’s Open, which begins tomorrow. Justin Rose had to catch a late afternoon flight from Boston to Scotland.

“You have to prepare for everything,” Faxon said. “But, sometimes, you have to make some split-second decisions.”

Once it was decided that there wasn’t time to have all the teams return to the course and finish, Andrade and Faxon considered other options.

“Unless the storm devastated the course,” Andrade said, “we didn’t want to say it was over. We wanted to go back out and finish.”

With four teams tied for the lead, the logical solution was to have a playoff between them. But exactly what kind of playoff?

“If we just played one hole,” Andrade said, “it could have turned out to be ‘Groundhog Day.’ We could have been here at the 18th forever, going back and forth from tee to green. We didn’t want to have that on live television.”

That was another factor.

The tournament was to have aired on The Golf Channel on taped delay from 4 to 6 p.m. Suddenly, the final holes could be shown live.

“That was great for the tournament, great for CVS,” said Faxon.

Especially when the decision was made to have a three-hole playoff on holes 16 through 18, on the links-style holes beside the Bay.

“It turned out great,” Faxon said.

It couldn’t have turned out better for Villegas and Watson, who are an odd couple because –– one, how often do you see a pairing of guys named Camilo and Bubba; and, two, Villegas played college golf at Florida, while Watson went to Georgia. The Gators and the Bulldogs are bitter rivals.

But, as Faxon said, “A hundred-fifty thousand apiece [the winners’ share] will make you friends.”

It’s because Faxon and Andrade have made so many friends in their years on the PGA Tour that the CVS tournament attracts such stellar fields, year after year.

“This is a fun tournament, a great event,” Watson said. “It’s unbelievable the amount of money they’ve raised –– more than $10 million over 10 years.”

The event raised more than $1.6 million last year for children’s charities throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, and it’s expected that figure will be exceeded this year.

What seemed like a possible washout turned out, happily, to be a memorable capper to the tournament’s first decade.

“The weather was crazy there for a while,” said Watson, “but it worked out in the end.”

jdonalds@projo.com