BELEK (AFP) - A three-hour thunderstorm delay means that world number one Tiger Woods and current European number one Henrik Stenson will not manage to complete their opening rounds in the Turkish Open which gets underway on Thursday.

The storm struck the Colin Montgomerie-designed Maxx Royal course in southern Turkey before any players in the elite 78-player field had managed to tee off.

But after an initial two-hour delay and an inspection of the course, officials moved the first match tee time from the scheduled 9:05am local time (7:05GMT) start to 12:05 (10:05GMT).

Tournament Director Miguel Vidadoar said: "There was first a one hour delay and that was extended to two hours and then when it was safe to inspect the course a number of the greens had flooded.

"That forced us into a further hour's delay. However with an earlier start tomorrow (Friday) I'm confident we can get back to normal and proceed with all four rounds."

Woods and Stenson along with reigning US Open champion Justin Rose were due to tee off at 11:05 (09:05GMT) and that has been put back to 14:05 (12:05GMT).

However, with darkness around 17:00 (15:00GMT) the trio along with many other players will not managed to complete their round.