The Di Marco shares the lead at 5 under with the English Ryder Cup players and Masters rookies Luke Donald and David Howell through the partly completed second round, and faces the prospect of playing 35 holes on Saturday as officials try to get caught up after another day of mostly standing still. Pun intended: These guys are starting to excel at treading water.

Of the top six names on the leader board last night, five were international pros - David Howell (England) at five under par through 26 holes; Luke Donald (England) at five under through 20 holes; Vijay Singh (Fiji) at four under through 18 holes; Mark Hensby (Australia) at three under through 25 holes; and Stuart Appleby (Australia) at three under through 18 holes. With play suspended at 4pm local time yesterday and the delayed second round, along with the scheduled third round, due to be completed today, two Englishmen - David Howell and Luke Donald - sat atop the leaderboard on five under par alongside the first-round leader Chris DiMarco, one ahead of the world’s No1 ranked player Vijay Singh and three ahead of the defending Masters champion Phil Mickelson. Organizers said play would resume at 0830 local (1200 GMT) Saturday, with a favorable weekend forecast expecting mainly dry conditions.

This is the third time in the last four years second-round play at Augusta National has spilled over into the third day, and the ninth event out of 15 on this season’s PGA Tour to be hit by the weather. Englishmen David Howell and Donald – or is it David Donald and Luke Howell? – are tied with Chris DiMarco for the lead.

Fijian Vijay Singh is fourth, a stroke ahead of Australians Mark Hensby and Stuart Appleby. South African Retief Goosen has won two of the past four United States of America. Opens. Foreign-born players won 26 of the 48 PGA tour stops last year. In 1959, the first year Jack Nicklaus won the Masters, there were eight foreign-born players in the field. This year, there are 44.

Last year, American Phil Mickelson won the Masters. The next five names on the leaderboard were South African Ernie Els, Korean K.J. Choi, Spaniard Sergio Garcia, German Bernhard Langer and Englishman Paul Casey.