World number one Dustin Johnson withdrew from the Masters just moments before he was due to start his first round at Augusta National on Thursday.
Johnson looked set to tee off shortly after 2pm local time despite the back injury he suffered in a "serious fall" in his rented house on Wednesday afternoon.
However, the US Open champion then left the first tee and headed into the clubhouse, leaving Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker to tee off in the final group.
Johnson had earlier gone through a short initial warm-up on the range before receiving treatment, the 32-year-old then returning to the range and appearing more at ease as he hit shots under the watchful eye of coach Butch Harmon.
Johnson, who had won his previous three events, said: "It sucks. I want to play. I'm playing the best golf of my life and to have a freak accident happen yesterday afternoon, it sucks really bad.
"I have been worked on all morning and obviously I can take some swings, but I can't swing full, I can't make my normal swing and I didn't think there was any chance I could compete."
Johnson said that the accident happened when he was heading outside to move his car before his son Tatum got back from daycare.
"I was wearing socks and slipped and went down the three stairs," he added. "The left side of my lower back took the brunt of it and my left elbow is bruised as well."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article