AUGUSTA, Ga. — A number of towering pine timber fell close to Masters patrons as storms rolled by Augusta Nationwide on Friday, although no person was injured because the second spherical of the match floor to a halt as play stopped for the day.
One other tree additionally fell elsewhere on the property.
“The security and well-being of everybody attending the Masters Match will at all times be the highest precedence of the membership, which is able to proceed to carefully monitor climate at present and thru the match,” the Masters mentioned in a press release.
The course had already been cleared as soon as for 21 minutes when the primary band of storms handed by the realm. The air horn sounded once more at 4:22 p.m. ET as one other set of storms arrived, bringing heavy rains and the specter of lightning.
A couple of minutes previous to the horns sounding to cease play, a number of monumental pine timber fell about 10 to fifteen yards forward of the left aspect of the seventeenth tee field, sending the patrons within the space scattering for canopy. Larry Mize, Min Woo Lee and novice Harrison Crowe watched from the sixteenth inexperienced because the timber fell.
Adrian Meronk, Kevin Kisner and Louis Oosthuizen had already teed off on No. 17 and have been on the inexperienced when the timber fell, with Kisner stepping away from his putt.
“We have been cresting the golf green on 15,” mentioned Sahith Theegala, who’s enjoying in his first Masters. “We thought it was a scoreboard or a grandstand. We have been hoping it wasn’t one thing that hit anyone.”
Everybody escaped hurt, however the shut name was evidenced by a number of crushed chairs beneath the fallen pines.
“I used to be speaking to mates subsequent to me and abruptly we heard a crack,” mentioned Katie Waites, a patron from Charleston, South Carolina. “And there have been three timber throughout the pond, and impulsively we noticed them falling and everyone — it was identical to ants. They have been like, scattering identical to ants from beneath. All three fell on the similar time. After which I simply grabbed my mates’ palms we have been like, ‘Is everybody OK?’ And it was silent.”
Waites mentioned she noticed one lady standing between the 2 fallen timber, and she or he had heard {that a} man had crawled out from beneath among the limbs. She added that it was “completely a miracle” that no person was damage.
Officers rushed to get patrons off the course, and employees shortly arrived with chainsaws to start clearing the fallen timber.
The storms had been anticipated all through the day, and match officers moved all beginning instances up half-hour within the hopes of getting the second spherical in as scheduled. The morning dawned scorching and humid, with loads of solar, but it surely gave solution to ominous clouds churning by from the east shortly after the lunch hour.
Brooks Koepka was the chief at 12 beneath when play stopped, making the most of fortuitous tee instances that left him within the clubhouse lengthy earlier than the storms arrived. Jon Rahm was three photographs again in second however had 9 holes nonetheless to play.
Second-round play will resume at 8 a.m. Saturday, with the third spherical to instantly observe.
ESPN’s Paul Gaeta and The Related Press contributed to this report.
