Masters delayed by bad weather

Thunder and lightning delayed the start of the Masters today – and threatened to wipe out the entire first day’s play for the second time in three years.

Thousands of spectators arrived at Augusta National for the planned 8.05am first tee-off-time only to find most of the gates to the club closed.

Police officers had been instructed not to let any fans in until 9.30am at the earliest and while they tried to find somewhere to wait the players were told of the 85-minute delay as well.

The US Tour has been plagued by bad weather this season, with the last two tournaments both spilling into Monday.

No play was possible in last week’s BellSouth Classic in Atlanta on either Thursday or Friday and then went it did start a freak snowstorm hit the course and delayed the action again.

Even with it being cut to 54 holes it did not finish until 7.15pm Monday following a five-man play-off eventually won on the fourth extra hole by this week’s defending champion Phil Mickelson.

February’s Nissan Open was reduced to only two rounds and in all nine out of 15 tournaments had suffered a delay.

An inch of rain was expected during the day, but the forecast was for the storms to then clear away and not return for the rest of the tournament.

Forty of the 69 Masters have now had rain and play has been held up five times in the last 10 years, although the 2003 wash-out was the first in 64 years.

The disappointment this time was that the three practice days were blessed with glorious sunshine and it was only an hour before the first shots were due to be struck – England’s David Howell, making his debut, is in the very first group – that the first storm arrived.

The first tee-off time was pushed back to 10.35am. It meant two-and-a-half hours had been lost already and while the rain had eased off some fairways had standing water on them and no chances could be taken, of course, with lightning still in the area.