Play suspended at Castle Stuart due to flooding
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PLAY has been suspended in the Barclays Scottish Open at Castle Stuart Golf Links.
The delayed second round was due to have been completed on Saturday morning from 7am with around 78 players still to finish their round.
However, heavy overnight rain in the Inverness area has flooded the course and the surrounding areas and spectators have been told not to travel to the area.
The European Tour has announced that a further update will be given at 12noon and there will be no play before 2pm.
The second round had been hit by two delays on Friday afternoon due to the threat of thunder and ligtning.
After a bright start to the second round and some low scoring in beautiful conditions, the weather closed in around 3.30pm and dark skies cast a shadow over Castle Stuart.
The 201 US Open Champion Graeme McDowell led the way after firing the joint lowest round of the day, an eight under par 64, which hoisted him to the top of the leaderboard at -11.
He was joined by Scottish players Scott Jamieson and Peter Whiteford who both shot 66s.
Spaniard Joe Manual Lara is on -10 after also firing a 66.
Aberdeen-based Paul Lawrie is one of three players on -9 after shooting a 64.
Lawrie said: "I putted absolutely magnificently out there.
"When it's calm people are going to shoot these kind of scores. But that's the beauty of it, that's why we like it. Tomorrow it could be howling a gale and pouring rain and level par is a good score."
Angel Cabrera (64) and Nicolas Colsaerts (66) are also on nine under.
McDowell said following his 64: "Got to the golf course this morning and we realised conditions were going to be easy and it was going to be there for the taking a little bit.
"It's links golf, links golf without wind is generally pretty low scoring. Is that a bad thing?
"There's fans, plenty of them out there to watch us play good golf and we are certainly giving them that."
Colin Montgomerie, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood are among the players still to complete their second rounds.
First round leader Westwood remains on -7 after 11 holes of his second round.
Donald and Montgomerie, who are playing together, are -7 and -6 respectively and still have nine holes left to play.
Updates are available at www.europeantour.com
