Rory McIlroy and Tyrrell Hatton call out Masters officials over slow play: 'It took 32 holes to act'

McIlroy's birdie-free second round of 77 took an incredible six hours and two minutes to complete alongside Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler, the world number one's 72 giving him a share of the halfway lead with Max Homa and Bryson DeChambeau on six under par.

McIlroy, who slumped to four over, said: "Tough day, really tough day.

"Just hard to make a score and just sort of trying to make as many pars as possible. I felt like I did okay. I made that bogey on 14, and even just to par the last four holes and get in the clubhouse and have a tee time tomorrow, I'm sort of pretty happy with."

Asked about the pace of play, McIlroy said: "It felt long, yeah. Especially that 11th hole, it felt like it took an hour to play that hole.

"It was stop and start, hard to get into a rhythm with the conditions and obviously how slow the play was as well."

He continued: "I won from 10 back [at halfway] in Dubai at the start of the year, but obviously the Dubai Desert Classic and the Masters are two very different golf tournaments.

"We'll see. Hopefully the conditions are a little better tomorrow. Yeah, I still think I can go out tomorrow and shoot a low one, get back into red numbers, and have half a chance going into Sunday."

Meanwhile, Tyrrell Hatton was also frustrated by the "brutal" pace of play of the group in front of his at Augusta National, which consisted of Im Sung-jae, Kurt Kitayama and former champion Patrick Reed.

"The lads in front have been so slow," Hatton said after adding a 74 to his opening 72 to safely make the halfway cut.

"It's pretty poor from the officials that it took 32 holes to put them on the clock.

"Yesterday they'd lost a hole and a half and then they weren't any better even this morning (when the first round resumed) and then for the second round they were just brutal.

"(It's) fine for them, they're not waiting on any shot that they hit. But for us, we stood in the fairway, we stood on the tee.

"It was really hard to get a rhythm, so it was disappointing that it took 32 holes for an official to go, ‘Oh, we've put the group in front on the clock'.

"We stood on the eighth waiting to hit our second shots in and they're still putting out and the lads in front of them have teed off 10. It's a small field. It's not hard to really keep up with the group in front.

"I understand if you've had a tough hole, but when it's just like every hole then it's a bit more frustrating."