From the sportinglife
The Scottish Open has been cut from 72 to 54 holes for the first time in its history after torrential rain prevented any play before 1500 BST at the earliest at Castle Stuart today.
Half the 156-strong field were unable to complete their second rounds yesterday and conditions were so bad overnight that no members of the public were allowed entrance to the flooded car parks this morning.
Even if play was able to resume in mid-afternoon no crowd was going to be allowed on five holes - the first, second, 10th, 11th and 12th down by the Moray Firth - because of the state of the walkways at the course near Inverness.
The best-case scenario now was for the second round to be completed today and then the third round to be played in its entirety tomorrow.
But it is still possible the event, which moved north from Loch Lomond this year, could spill into Monday if the third round cannot quite be completed tomorrow night.
Officials were understandably being cautious about spectator access after two fans suffered broken legs during Friday's action.
Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell and Scots Peter Whiteford and Scott Jamieson were the overnight leaders on 11 under par, all three of them having finished their second rounds in bright sunshine by yesterday lunchtime.
Among those affected by the stoppages were Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, involved in another battle for the world number one spot and both seven under with nine and seven holes to play respectively, and Colin Montgomerie, still in with a chance of claiming the one Open Championship spot up for grabs.
The shortening of the tournament was bad news for Montgomerie, though.
On six under with nine to play and with a tricky chip coming up from beside the 10th green he was in joint 25th place and needed to climb into the top five just to have a chance to playing next week.
For European Tour rookie Jamieson, on the other hand, it was good news. As well as boosting his hopes of a first victory on the circuit because he had only 18 more holes to play rather than 36, he too is not exempt for The Open yet.
Tournament director Mike Stewart said: "We were met with an absolute deluge here this morning - in the region of two and a half inches of rain in a couple of hours.
"It resulted in a lot of flooding and some landslides on holes one and 12. The staff have done an absolutely superb job in repairing much of the damage and are continuing as we speak.
"We did set an initial possible time for a restart at 2pm, but that has been pushed back to 3pm.''
Championship director Peter Adams added: "Our role is making sure that everything is safe for everybody coming to the tournament.
"When we arrived regrettably most of the parking areas were pretty much under water, including the main car park and the bus turning circle, and walkways were in a bad state.''
Stewart also said that consideration was given to trying to play 36 holes tomorrow so that the event would be decided over the full four-round distance, but that was rejected because of the weather forecast for the rest of the day and tomorrow.
"The course was close to unplayable this morning, but we are pretty confident that it can take an awful lot of rain without major disruption,'' he added.
Meanwhile, it was announced that Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and Sports Minister Shona Robison had delayed their visit to the tournament for 24 hours.
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