Langer fury over Augusta draw

Bernhard Langer criticised organisers of the Masters today after the tournament descended into total confusion for a while.

It was caused by a computer breakdown between the second and third rounds.

When officials came to the draw of the 50 who had survived the halfway cut it was spotted that one of the names appeared twice, according to a member of the tournament committee.

As the players and crowd waited for the event to resume nothing happened for around an hour. And then pairings were made up at first simply on the basis of who on the same score was around at the time.

Retief Goosen and Shingo Katayama, for instance, were first off the first tee. Both had reached halfway on two over par, but according to the computer listing Goosen should have been paired with Mark O’Meara and the Japanese player with Justin Leonard.

Instead Leonard teed off on the 10th hole with Chad Campbell.

Langer said: “This is like the dark ages. How difficult can it be to get 50 players back on the course? Just split them in two and send them off again.

“I told them I have seen amateur events better organised. And I still don’t know when I am playing.”

He eventually discovered he was playing at 5.15pm (10.15pm Irish Time) with Ernie Els, who had also made the cut with nothing to spare at four over.

The delay further held up an event already running behind schedule after rain delays on Thursday and Friday.

It was Saturday afternoon before the second round was completed, but with the extra time lost the third round was bound to spill into Sunday.

Rather than 13 groups off the first tee and 12 groups off the 10th the split was 14 and 11, which meant leader Chris DiMarco and second-placed Thomas Bjorn did not go out again until 5.45pm local time.