History was made at 3.39pm local time in the first round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship as the world's top three - Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald - teed off in the same group.
It was the first time that three Europeans, occupying the highest territory in professional golf, had played together with World Number One Kaymer from Germany, Number Two Westwood and his fellow Englishman, Donald, in third position going into the event in Miami.
The high powered threeball teed off almost three hours after their scheduled start time, as only 30 minutes play was possible before a fierce thunderstorm hit the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship at Doral Resort and Spa.
Graeme McDowell was just about to go to the tenth tee to play the opening round with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson - and instead watched a tree blown over and a hospitality tent "attempt to fly off".
Ian Poulter had time only to drive into the left rough down the long first before the siren sounded and on his return to the clubhouse posted a video of the storm on his Twitter site.
By then the 69-strong field had already been reduced to 66 with Bubba Watson, a semi-finalist at the WGC-Accenture Match Play two weeks ago, pulling out because of illness and both fellow American Ben Crane and South African Tim Clark failing to recover from injuries.
Clark has not played since the Sony Open in Hawaii in January because of tendinitis in his right elbow and Crane suffered a pulled rib muscle at the Match Play.
Watson, the World Number 15, had tweeted: "I am going to try and play today, but my head hurts, body aches and got no energy!"
The big-hitter also joked that Poulter, one of his playing partners, would be out-driving him, but then Watson went to the practice range and realised the situation was a bit more serious.
"Hit one ball and knew I could not play," he said. "Club felt so heavy. Time to rest and be ready for next week."
Danes Thomas Björn and Anders Hansen and Indian S S P Chowrasia led at one under, all after only one hole, while Welshman Rhys Davies had a two foot putt on the second to remain level par.
Officials announced they hoped to resume play at 2.30pm local time. With over two-and-a-half hours lost there seemed little chance of the first round being completed before nightfall - and that was assuming no further hold-ups.
In all 17 trees were uprooted in winds that gusted to 52 miles per hour. There were also some television towers blown over, a camera ended up in the water on the short ninth and the 17th green suffered some damage.
The giant scoreboard by the 18th, meanwhile, was reduced to rubble and one of the two-storey hospitality units was closed to check for damage.
McDowell and Mickelson set off with birdie putts of 28 and 12 feet respectively, but Woods had to settle for a par five.
Poulter moved to one under after coming out of a fairway bunker to 15 feet at the second, but the lead was taken by Fiji's Vijay Singh with birdies on the tenth and 11th.
Davies, however, drove into water on the third and ran up a double bogey six.
