Rain delay at Ryder Cup

The chances of a three-day finish for the Ryder Cup took a severe blow this morning when a morning deluge delayed the scheduled start of play.

The chances of a three-day finish for the Ryder Cup took a severe blow this morning when ra morning deluge delayed the scheduled start of play.

With the USA 6-4 up overnight but Colin Montgomerie’s European team up in the six unfinished matches on course, both teams will have been eager to get under way at the listed time of 7.45am.

But instead the players were kept in thir hotel and spectators held in car parks as the course began to hold large amounts of standing water.

After seven hours of play were lost on Friday the event is already well behind schedule and a Monday finish now looks a virtual certainty.

It was then announced that play would not resume before midday - no surprise to those who had battled through atrocious conditions to arrive at the course.

No spectators had so far been allowed into Celtic Manor, and as daylight began to break, surface water could be seen swamping the 18th green.

A further announcement is expected at 11am.

Chief referee John Paramor said: “There is an enormous storm cell sitting out in the north Atlantric, the same one that affected us on Friday, and we are slap, bang in the middle of it.

“We are told it will ease off between 9am and 10am or 10.30am, and then we will probably need an hour or a hour-and-a-half to make the course playable again.

“There is absolutely no point in greenkeeping staff being out there now.

“It now looks as though we will definitely be playing tomorrow, but we are hopeful that we will finish the third session today and then it will be a case of when we start the singles.”

Europe star Ian Poulter said on Twitter: ``There will be no golf this morning, official.

“12.00 is the earliest possible restart, but it could be later.

“Back to bed friends. A nice couple of hours relaxing.”

Ryder Cup match director Ed Kitson said spectators who had tickets for today's scheduled action would be able to use them if play spills over into Monday, and the same would apply for those with season tickets.

He also said a review was taking place of Friday’s arrangements when spectators could not get a refund because a certain number of holes had been played during the four hours or so of play that were possible.

The current forecast for tomorrow is dry with sunshine.