AUGUSTA, Ga. — The weather delay of nearly three hours that interrupted Thursday’s Masters opening round has set the tournament schedule back because of the lack of daylight at this time of year.
Because of the delay, 44 of the 92 players in the field were still in the midst of their respective opening rounds when play was suspended because of darkness at 5:30 p.m.
The first round will resume at 7:30 a.m. Friday and is scheduled to be completed by 9:30 a.m., at which time the second round will begin. The second round will not be completed by day’s end Friday, which means it will be completed on Saturday morning, at which time the 36-hole cut to the top 50 and ties will be made.
From there, barring any further weather delays, the tournament can get back on schedule Saturday and be completed as scheduled on Sunday afternoon. There doesn’t appear to be any more threatening weather in the forecast for the rest of the tournament.
The completion of the first round will be televised by ESPN, beginning at 7:30 a.m. Friday. ESPN will show the completion of the first round and then return to the air at 1 p.m. for its regularly scheduled broadcast.
“Sure, I’d love to finish off the rest of the last eight holes well and hopefully continue the momentum,’’ said Justin Thomas, one of the hottest players on the course when play was halted, at 5-under par through 10 holes. “You never know what the next day is going to bring you in this sport.
“There’s nothing I can do about it, so it doesn’t really matter. Getting in 10 holes at the start of the day with what [the forecast] looked like on Monday is fine. I’ve got a lot of golf left. It’s a long day [Friday].’’
One of the cool stories of the first day was 62-year-old Augusta native Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters winner. He shot a 2-under-par 70 Thursday. It had been 22 rounds and 10 years since he shot a round below par at the Masters. Mize carded six birdies in the round.
He’s made the cut only five times in the past 19 Masters and has put himself in position to make it to the weekend this year.
Mize said he “did happen to see’’ his name atop the leaderboard after the fourth hole, saying, “Wow, that’s kind of cool.’’
“I’d like to be there more often,’’ Mize said. “It’s always fun to see your name up on the leaderboard here. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it [there].’’
Mize said he missed having family and local friends at the course to root him on, but no patrons are allowed this year.
“It would have been fun to make those six birdies in front of family and friends. … Hopefully some of them were following me online, and hopefully they enjoyed that,’’ he said. “To not have any roars out there today and no patrons, it is different, but it’s still special. It’s still awesome to be here, awesome to be here playing.’’
Jack Nicklaus, 80, and Gary Player, 85, continued the tradition as the honorary starters, hitting the first tee shots at 6:50 a.m. in the rain.
“I was pleased that it was dark because you couldn’t see where my ball went,’’ Nicklaus said jokingly.
Nicklaus, for the first time, had his wife, Barbara, “caddie’’ for him, wearing the white coveralls.
“Normally, I have one of the grandkids, and of course we couldn’t bring anybody except our spouses this time,’’ he said. “Last night, I said to her, ‘I think it would be kind of fun if you would put on a caddie uniform and do that,’ and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you do, it’ll be fun.’ ’’
Both Nicklaus and Player were taken aback at how emotional Tiger Woods was as the host of the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night.
“Tiger was really remarkable at the dinner this year as a host,’’ Player said. “It was very heartwarming listening to him speak. He said he was on the way to the golf course, and he had to stop because he had tears in his eyes and paused for a little while on the road because a lot of memories were going through his mind very quickly. He paused for a while, and he spoke very, very well.’’
Nicklaus said, “Tiger was very emotional. I’ve never seen Tiger that way. But it was good. You always walk away with some feeling of something that you hadn’t had before.’’
