Shane Lowry insisted he wasn’t distracted by playing with Tiger Woods as he opened with a two-over 74 to trail Paul Casey by nine shots in the first round of the rain-delayed Masters Tournament.

"I can't seem to get my head around this place,” said Lowry, who watched Woods shoot a bogey-free 68 to lie just three shots off the pace. "Played lovely in practice. Played really good going into it, and just off to a bad start.

"But look, it is what it is. I'll regroup tonight, and whatever time we do play at tomorrow, I'll be ready to go and try and shoot the best score I can.”

Scores

On playing with Woods for the first time, he added: "It was nice to play with Tiger my first time I was able to play with him. It is pretty cool. I didn't want to get distracted by it today, and I don't think I did.

“But playing with like my golfing hero is just pretty cool around this place, and as the Open Champion playing with the defending champion, that was just kind of a bit of a surreal experience.

"But I am very disappointed with my day, but I did enjoy my day, as well. Like I said, I just need to regroup now tonight. I played it really, really nice in practice and I played really well in Houston last week, so no reason why I can't go out and shoot a good score tomorrow.”

As for Woods (44), he proved he doesn’t need the Augusta roars to challenge for sixth green jacket.

“I got off to a fast start today, which is good, but I think everyone is,” Woods said. “Everyone is going low out there today. With these conditions, you have to. You have to be aggressive.

“The only thing I could say is that I wish I could have made a couple more putts. I missed everything on the high side.”

Looking to match Jack Nicklaus with a sixth Masters win, Woods was playing alongside Shane Lowry, who opened with a disappointing, two-over 74 as Graeme McDowell double-bogeyed his final hole to turn a 70 into a level par 72.

“We're trying to get used to that this entire year,” Woods said of the sound of silence at Augusta.

“It's so different. Shane was telling me today that it was pretty exciting last week [in Houston] to have the energy level of 200 people out there following his group.

“We haven't had that this entire year. It's been very different.

“This world that we live in is not what we've had throughout my career, and that's something we're going to have to get used to for some time.”

McDowell bogeyed the 10th and 13th because of mud balls but after three-putting the 15th for par, he got fired up, chipped in for birdie at the 16th, then birdied the second, third and eighth to get to two-under only to take six at the ninth

"It's never any fun to finish like that," said McDowell. "I missed one fairway today, and that's the one on 9, and I pulled a horrendous lie under a branch for my second shot and I could only manage to putt it out of there and left myself on the downslope in the rough and made six from there."

He added: "Disappointed to finish like that, but lots of positives to take into tomorrow. I mean, the golf course is certainly as soft as you're ever going to see Augusta. It's as gettable as we're ever going to see at this place, and there was certainly a good score to be had out there, I just couldn't quite get the job done."

Rory McIlroy made a tentative start, bunkering his approach to the first to drop a shot. He then made hard work of the par-five second, missed a 10 footer for birdie at the third and bunkered his tee shot at the fourth before making a 10 footer for par.

He missed a four footer for birdie at the seventh but but birdied the eighth to get back to level before finding green side sand at the 10th when play was suspended.

Amateur James Sugrue was four over through nine after three putting three times and missing another short putt.

The Mallow man (23) three-putted the 10th for an opening bogey, then drove right on the 11th and watched his attempt to punch an approach down the fairway from the right rough shoot left into the water.

He did well to get up and down from 65 yards for bogey, knocking in a 15 footer there before two-putting from long range for a par at the 12th,

After a two putt par at the 13th, he over shot the 14th from the rough but made par from 10 feet before two-putting for birdie from 16 feet at the par-five 15th to get back to one-over.

He then three-putted the 16th from nearly 50 feet, and three-putted again from long range at the 17th after getting out of position with his tee shot before missing from inside three feet for par at the 18th after tugging his approach left of the green.