Tom McKibbin held a one-shot lead after a wet and stormy opening day of the Husqvarna British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo.
The first three-hour suspension of the day came just two minutes after the opening tee shots were hit, with 94 minutes of play then possible before flooded bunkers saw another four hours and ten minutes lost.
When play resumed again, Northern Irishman McKibbin got to five under through 13 holes but with the first groups of the day playing their final holes, the hooter sounded again at 7.11pm as storms returned to The Belfry.
Englishman Joe Dean and Spaniard Nacho Elvira were one shot behind McKibbin having completed 13 and 12 holes respectively, with South African Dylan Frittelli, Italy's Francesco Laporta, Finn Oliver Lindell, Frenchman Antoine Rozner, German Marcel Schneider and American Johannes Veerman at three under.
The adverse weather conditions had been expected coming into the week and Tournament Director Ben Groutage was full of praise for the groundstaff.
"They have done a great job on the course," he said. "Tees, fairways and greens have actually held really well to the weather.
"It's just so much rain in such a short period of time that put so much in the bunkers, and there's not really a lot the greens staff could have done about that."
He added: "We managed to play two minutes first thing this morning before we came off for lightning. We got back out there and, unfortunately, had so much rain that the bunkers became unplayable. The rest of the golf course is actually very good but we just couldn't keep the bunkers playable, so it wasn't fair.
"We suspended again. We were off for nearly four hours, and we managed to get back out and play another three just now."
Starting on the tenth, McKibbin was level par after two at the time of the second delay but took advantage of the par-five 15th and 17th before holing a long putt at the 18th.
A stunnung approach to the first then brought another gain before he completed the set of birdies on the par-fives at the third.
Playing in the group behind McKibbin, Dean birdied the 13th, 15th, 17th, second and third with a bogey on the 14th, while Elvira made a gain on the third and had just rattled off a hat-trick from the tenth when the hooter sounded.
Play will resume at 7.30am, with the second wave from round one teeing off between 8.00am and 10.00am.
Round two will not start before 1.45pm.
