Hole in one keeps Donald in front

Luke Donald may have had to wait an extra hour to resume his bid for the BMW Championship at Wentworth today, but it was worth the wait. He holed-in-one at the second hole.

The shot, with a seven-iron, spun into the cup to the cheers of the few spectators braving the miserably wet conditions and took Donald into a two-stroke lead at seven under par.

It was the first ace the 28-year-old has had on the European tour, but while it came on the same hole where Isao Aoki famously won a house at Gleneagles in an early World Match Play Championship, the prize of a BMW sports car is on offer at the short 14th this week.

After the 60-minute rain delay at the start of the day Donald, seeking his first professional victory in Britain after three in America, soon moved three clear of the star-studded field, but bogeys at the seventh and ninth brought the chasing pack onto his tail again.

The world number 10, who shared the overnight lead with fellow Englishmen Paul Casey and Nick Dougherty and South Africa’s Andrew McLardy, stood five under par while Dougherty slipped back to four under and the other two to three under.

Liverpudlian Dougherty was in a tie for second place with Swedish playing partner Niclas Fasth and three players yet to tee off again: Order of Merit leader David Howell, defending champion Angel Cabrera and Dubliner Peter Lawrie.

Darren Clarke and Ryder Cup points leader Henrik Stenson, paired together, were in a battle to survive the halfway cut at one over and two over respectively, while Lee Westwood appeared to have little chance of making it through when he turned at six over.

If he failed it meant the Worksop golfer would have crashed out of his last five events, three in the States starting with the Masters and two on his return to Europe.

At one over after a 73 Colin Montgomerie was trying to avoid an eighth missed cut in his last 10 tournaments, but he was among the later starters.

After a week of heavy rain the latest downpour led to officials not only delaying the resumption, but also changing the hole locations on three of the greens – the first, fourth and 16th – so that they were in drier positions.

But it looked like being a stop-start day with parts of the West Course already saturated and the players preparing to tee off had to dodge puddles on the practice putting green.

Donald had been critical of the course set-up for the opening round, saying: “The European Tour were cautious. I think you would not have seen that in America.

“It really didn’t seem to play too difficult. I was thinking coming down the 18th that when I do play in Europe the courses generally are a little more generous off the tee, the rough isn’t quite as thick and they don’t tuck the pins quite as much as they do on the US Tour.

“You can short-side yourself out here and still get up and down and make par and it’s not too big of a deal.

“At the US Open you’re not going to get away with it. I think that is part of the reason why we haven’t been very successful in majors, especially the US Open.”

The last winner of that title was Tony Jacklin in 1970 and no European has won any major since Paul Lawrie at the 1999 Open.

Tournament director David Garland pointed out, however, that the tee on the third had been moved forward 70 yards because otherwise drives would have been landing on an unplayable part of the fairway.