The first round of the 88th Masters has been delayed by two and a half hours due to bad weather at Augusta National.
South Africa's Erik van Rooyen was due to hit the opening tee shot at 8am local time (1pm Irish time), but tournament officials announced this morning that play would not get under way on time and followed that up with a second statement that pushed the start back to 10.30am (3.30pm).
"We continue to monitor the weather closely," the earlier statement read.
Thunderstorms, heavy rain and winds gusting up to 45mph were all in the forecast for Thursday, but the skies were starting to clear ahead of the delayed start.
Rory McIlroy will have pre-tournament favourite Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele for company when he gets his 10th bid to complete the career grand slam under way, which will now be 6.12pm Irish time.
Shane Lowry will begin his tournament alongside Akshay Bhatia and J. T. Poston at 7.54pm Irish time (2.54pm local) and given the forecast may have to finish his opening round on Friday.
Five-time winner Tiger Woods almost certainly will as he is not out until an hour after Lowry.
Full updated tee times are here and live leaderboard here.
Follow our live Masters updates from first-tee Thursday to final-green Sunday on RTE.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app
Follow the RTÉ Sport WhatsApp channel for the best news, interviews, analysis and features, as well as details of our sports coverage across all RTÉ platforms.
