48 hours: Rain gives players a huge task

It was supposed to be moving day at the Masters yesterday. That's what the third round is called, as in players moving into a challenging spot before the final, nerve-rattling round.

But the only moving done during a rain-curtailed day at Augusta was the raising and lowering of umbrellas; the busiest arm belonged to the bloke with the red siren signalling time to down clubs as lightning hovered and rain did what rain does.

So this morning the leading players were facing a marathon day, none more so than leader Chad Campbell, a 31-year-old Texan who - to all bar diehard golf fans - has managed the considerable feat of moving to sixth on the USPGA money-winners' list this year, won three PGA Tour titles including the so-called fifth major, the Tour Championship three years ago, yet remained essentially anonymous.

Campbell started this morning with a one-shot lead over another couple of household names, Tim Clark and Rocco Mediate and with 32 holes ahead of him.

But in case you were thinking this was shaping as a quiet Masters for the Big Five, fear not, they're all in the frame.

Defending champ Tiger Woods and former Masters winner Phil Mickelson, the world's best if not golf's best buddies, are equal fourth, three behind Campbell; major winners Retief Goosen and Ernie Els and 2000 Masters champion Vijay Singh share seventh.

You would expect one of them to come through a long day today.

Yesterday, anyone with a romantic bone in their body would have turned the television on to check the progress of Ben Crenshaw.

Like Campbell, Crenshaw is a Texan. Unlike Campbell, he's a two-time winner of the Masters, 1984 and 1995. That second win remains an enduring Masters memory.

On the Sunday of Masters week, his longtime mentor Harvey Penick died. Crenshaw flew home to Austin to be a pallbearer, returning the next day for the opening round.

Going into the final round, he shared the lead. Walking up the 18th fairway, he held a two-shot lead and sank a short putt before tearfully clutching his head and his caddy, providing one of the lump-in-the-throat images so beloved of those soft-focus television types.

Jack Nicklaus won his sixth and last Masters in 1986, aged 46. Until then, it was thought impossible to be a force on the biggest stages at that age.

More so now, with the phalanx of ambitious 20-somethings carrying a mini-cannon in their golf bags. Crenshaw is 54. Yet he began yesterday in a share of 10th. Could he turn back the years, give the oldies something to throw back at the young pretenders with hunger in their eyes and power in their swing?

Switch on the TV and the first thing to be seen was Crenshaw playing his second shot out of bad rough on the left of the first fairway. One shot dropped.

He dropped two more at the second, another at the fourth and another at the seventh. Even par and those romantic thoughts plummeted to five over and a share of 35th.

The Masters is an acquired taste. It represents some unpleasant things about life in the United States' south.

They're not too keen on black members at the club, and as for women, just don't go there.

They paint their azaleas to make sure they look right for television. They put dye in the ponds. Artificial? You bet.

You walk, never run. Spectators are called patrons; if they're caught breaking into a jog heavies show them the door; television commentators who forget the P word are inclined not to be invited back.

I haven't been there and have no great desire to. Still it can provide a compelling spectacle, so the rain came at a bad time, just as the forces were assembling behind young Chad.

And that meant a change - sublime to ridiculous and all that - to the British Super League and Bradford Bulls hosting Warrington Wolves at a cold, bleak hole called Odsal Stadium.

It looked like an old Kiwi reunion, what with Logan Swann, Shontayne Hape, Paul Rauhihi, Joe Vagana, Henry Fa'afili and Lesley Vainikolo running around.

It also meant listening to Eddie Hemmings and Mike "T-R-Y" Stevenson, a pair of commentators as appealing as day-old porridge, which is what the playing surface looked like. A throwback to grimmer days. There's only so much you can take. Five minutes was plenty long enough.

High

Hannah McLean's 200m backstroke bronze medal at the world short course champs in China, which, allied to a bucketload of records by the national squad, carries on the good work of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Low

More Shane Bond injury woes. Having just returned from remoulding his bowling action, the New Zealand quick failed to get through day one of the South African tour before a knee flared up. It does not bode well.