Golf: Rain delay hits Deutsche Bank Open

A four-hour rain delay has given Tiger Woods some extra time to shake off the effects of jet lag in Germany today.

The world number one was due to tee off with Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke at 8.20am in the first round of the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open in Heidelberg.

But he was able to sleep on after a violent storm late yesterday and then steady rain this morning prevented any play on the saturated St Leon Rot course.

Officials are taking another look at conditions at 10am, but had already said that it would be 11.40am at the earliest before a ball was struck.

Woods won on the course two years ago and last month became the first player in golf history to hold all four Majors at the same time.

He is being paid a reported £1.4m to appear this week and part of that was to play in a pro-am with Boris Becker and Franz Beckenbauer.

But that was halted by rain.

Becker, in fact, was due to partner Lee Westwood, but at the last minute he stepped into the stellar group ahead and one of the tournament sponsors, a multi-millionaire, agreed to play with defending champion Westwood instead.