But with a better weather forecast for the rest of today and tomorrow, the tournament is scheduled to resume at around 10am tomorrow with a two-tee start.

The $400,000 tournament will revert to a 54-hole event.

Golf NSW Chief Operating Officer Graeme Phillipson said there was no option but to let the course dry out.

“It’s disappointing what’s happening out there,” he said. “The course generally holds up very well, but we’ve had so much rain over a long period of time that anything that’s falling on the surface is pooling. A number of fairways are underwater. The greens and bunkers here are great. You could play on those now but there’s too much water on the golf course. It really needs a good day’s drying, and we can make it playable again.”

Players have been using preferred lies in closely-mown areas all week because the course was wet from the rains that have swept across Sydney in recent times.

Phillipson paid tribute to the Concord’s greenkeeper Chris Howe and his staff for the work already done. “I’d be surprised if it doesn’t look a treat by tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll still have a bit of standing water but there won’t be any issues from a playability perspective. The staff have been working extremely long hours and they’ve done a fantastic job to make the course presentable for the first two days. I’m sure they’ll be doing the same over the next 24 hours to get it ready for Sunday.”

Sydney’s weather is forecast to improve this afternoon with a maximum temperature of 22 degrees and a southerly breeze, followed by a fine Sunday with a maximum of 25 degrees.

It is the third tournament in a row on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia that has been reduced to 54 holes by bad weather. The TPS Sydney event at Bonnie Doon was impacted in the final round and the first round of the TPS Hunter Valley event last week lost its first round.