Play abandoned in wet weather chaos as flooding turns Aus PGA ...

The Australian PGA Championship will become a three-round, 54-hole shootout as torrential rain and a flooded golf course forced Friday’s play to be abandoned without a single shot hit.

Royal Queensland was ravaged by overnight flooding as the course could not longer handle the almost 250mm of rain it had copped in the last week, and things only got worse as the downpours continued until a final announcement was made at 11.30am local time.

The first groups were meant to tee off at 6am local time (7am AEDT), but they will now start their second rounds at the same time on Saturday.

The second round will be played as normal tomorrow before a cut is made, and the top half of the field fight for the title on Sunday.

Bunkers, such as beside the green on the 18th, and fairways, notably the first, are engulfed by puddles leaving greenskeepers with a massive clean-up job.

The area surrounding the 18th green at Royal Queensland was worse for wear on Friday morning as flooding stopped the second round of the Australian PGA Championship from starting on time.Source: FOX SPORTS

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PGA Tour of Australasia’s Tournaments Director Nick Dastey confirmed that Saturday’s play will be the second round only.

“It takes the full day to get that play done. We’ll be through until about six o’clock tomorrow night, like today would have been,” he said.

“It will be a 54-hole event with the final round on Sunday. Yet to determine whether that will be two or three balls, but most likely a one tee start on Sunday with championship finishing at the expected time for a 54-hole event.

“The golf course is not getting a chance to dry out and get to position where we could look at any reasonable play out there, where it’s a fair an equitable situation for all the players.”

There is more rain forecast in Brisbane on Friday, but the weekend is predicted to stay dry in promising signs.

Tournament organisers opted against extending to play to Monday to keep it as a 72-hole event due to the Australian Open starting in Melbourne on Thursday and players needing time to travel, and play practice rounds at Kingston Heath and Victoria in preparation.

“The course staff have done an incredible job,” Dastey said. “They’ve been working throughout the night for the last four or five days.

“The amount of times they’ve pumped water out of bunkers and then another downpour comes and go again. We have to be mindful of what we’re putting everyone working on the tournament through as well.”

At present, some of the fairways are so wet that there is no spot where a player could take relief from casual water.

The greens have stayed in excellent condition, but the surrounds are sodden.

The first three holes have the wettest fairways on the course, according to Dastey, but the back nine is holding up well.

FIRST ROUND RECAP

Following a busy first round, Elvis Smylie has the solo lead thanks to an impressive -6 with a trio of Europeans in Cristobel Del Solar, Victor Perez and Joel Girrbach just behind him on -5.

The 23-year-old Smylie looked as if he’d give away his lead on the final hole of the round when he found two different bunkers on consecutive shots, but he kept his composure to coolly hole his fourth shot out of the bunker for a birdie on the par 5 ninth.

Cam Smith carded -4 in the opening round after a late flurry with his playing partners Jason Day (-4) and Min Woo Lee (-3) both right in the thick of things.

The superstar group of Smith, Day and Lee were originally down to tee off at 12:10am AEDT but due to the delay, will now likely start their second rounds quite late in the day, and are unlikely to finish their second round today.

NOTABLE TEE TIMES - ROUND 2, SATURDAY (ALL TIMES AEDT)

7:10am - Victor Perez, Cam Davis, Lucas Herbert

12.10pm - Min Woo Lee, Cam Smith, Jason Day

12.20pm - Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Marc Leishman, Harry Higgs

12.40pm - Elvis Smylie, Dan Gale, Adrien Saddier

HOW TO WATCH

Watch all the BMW Australian PGA Championship action on Kayo and Foxtel, with every big moment broadcast on channel Fox Sports 503.

Coverage will begin at 12:00pm AEDT every day!

FOLLOW ALL THE DAY 2 ACTION OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE BLOG BELOW!