Andrew: Slow play has been a problem in professional golf for years now, and the issue has really got out of hand over the past 5 years or so. There should be a 60 second time limit enforced for each shot. It should never take 5 or 6 hours to play 18 holes of golf!

Ned - At his desk in the City: Players should be allowed to throw the ball once per round, from where it stands and it does not count as a stroke. This includes dropping it in the hole when you have narrowly missed an important putt.

Robert Lusetich, Fox Sports.

Winner: Luke Donald. Completely overhauled his swing last year when he realised it was too flippy and dependent on timing. He has always had a fantastic short game but while he was doing that it lost its edge. Now it is coming back. He also has patience, and I don't think you have to be as long as everyone says you do here. A couple of years away from the spotlight of being number one has given him some hunger to get back.

Image source, Getty Images

Big week: Victor Dubuisson. The Frenchman is in hot form and is the sort of character that could come into a place like this and not worry about the conventional wisdom that says you have to have experience, and just go out and play golf - and his golf is really good. He's also got an unbelievable short game which will serve him well here.

Read more predictions from the experts.

Sergio Garcia (58) currently holds the longest run of most consecutive starts at a major, with Adam Scott 50 and K.J.Choi 47. The Spaniard tees off at 18:15 BST alongside 'Looouuuuke' Donald.

He posted the following on Facebook, external after a shopping trip at the Masters. It seems that Augusta National, while banning mobile phones from the course, are less shy about 21st century technology when it comes to making a merchandising dollar. One member of the Garcia clan is going to be chatting into a mobile clad in a Masters-approved case.

Image source, Sergio Garcia

-4 Jimenez (Spa) after 10; -3 Stricker (US) 10, Snedeker (US) 10, Scott (Aus) 8; -2 Haas (US) 10, McIlroy (NI) 7, Lyle (Sco) 3; -1 Gallacher (Sco) 2.

Selected others: E Fowler (US) after 11, +1 Donaldson (Wal) 9, Clarke (NI) 4, +2 Poulter (Eng) 12, McDowell (NI) 11 +5 Woosnam (Wal) 18

Latest leaderboard in full, external and tee times

Image source, Reuters

Defending champion Adam Scott is also in a share of second with a birdie on the eighth. Steve Stricker is the third and final man in that nearest chasing group to leader Miguel Angel Jimenez, but has it all to do to escape the 11th with that score intact. He faces a testy 15-foot for par.

Brandt Snedeker, satisfying to say isn't it? There might be plenty of sports newsreaders wrapping their lips around that name come the end of the day. The American has followed up his birdie on the eighth with more of the same on nine.

Three under overall, and one off leader Miguel Angel Jimenez.

Neil McLeman, Daily Mirror.

Winner: Zach Johnson. He has won here before and is a great putter. He's one of the few top players to have won this season so he's on form.

Big week: Harris English. He's making his debut here this week but he is in great form with a low scoring average and is a Georgia native so seems to me a good each-way bet.

Read more predictions from the experts.

Rob Hodgetts
BBC Sport at Augusta National

The "peacock of the fairway" Doug Sanders waits in the chute for Matt Kuchar to leave the putting green and stride to the first tee. The 80-year-old Sanders is dressed head to foot in red - red jumper, crisp red strides and shiny red golf shoes - and has the air of Las Vegas playboy.

Sanders never won a major but finished fourth at the Masters in 1966, the year Jack Nicklaus went back-to-back. He will always be remembered for taking four to get down from 74 yards, including missing a three footer to win, in the Open at St Andrews in 1970. He lost an 18-hole play-off to Nicklaus the next day. Sanders and Kuchar both hail from Georgia.

Image source, Getty Images

First sighting of Rickie Fowler's opening-day outfit. He is ready for night golf in case of some serious hold-ups in front of him. Luminous green for the American who is level par through ten.

He loses marks for the lack of facial hair though. He used to have one of golf's rare goatees.

Rob Hodgetts
BBC Sport at Augusta National

"Oh, Freddie. How do you do it? The 54-year-old has the air of a man who finds it all so easy. In what is becoming a Masters tradition, Couples is once again high up on the leaderboard at two under and cruising along as if it was a Sunday stroll with mates. There's a delay while Tim Clark punches out of trees and plays from the 10th fairway to 18. Couples, tee clamped in his mouth, chats to Augusta Green Jacket Ron Townsend while they wait.

"Eventually a man in a white suit waves a yellow flag and Couples steers a three wood around the corner. The 10th plunges away and around to the left and drives off the tee are akin to a footballer whipping a free-kick around a wall. Playing partners Webb Simpson, in Andy Pandy trousers, and Korean amateur Chang-woo Lee hit good ones and they head off.

"But not before Couples, the 1992 champion, stops to chat with CBS icon Jim Nantz, masters of ceremonies at the Green Jacket presentation, who was his room-mate at college."

Image source, Getty Images

Fred Couples holes out a testing putt for his par on the 11th and he remains at two under. The 54-year-old, who won the green jacket in 1992, seems to feel very much at home in front of the Augusta galleries. This is his 29th Masters tournament, he has made the cut 27 times and has been in the top 15 the past four years.

Golf statistican Jamie Kennedy, external points out that history over the past twenty five years points to the Masters favouring the highest ranked players, with the average world ranking of a Masters winner being 15, in comparison to 42.6 for The Open.

He, external also notes over the last 25 years, the average Masters champion has been 32.4 years old, ranked 15th in the world, with 8 previous Masters outings, suggesting that

Brandt Snedeker is 33 years of age, ranked 19th and has played six previous events at Augusta, fitting that profile pretty snugly.

Image source, Reuters

Perennial there-or-thereabouts man Brandt Snedeker climbs to two under with a birdie four on the eighth. He finished in a share of sixth place last year and was third in the 2008 event.

The first finishers are making their way home to the Augusta clubhouse with Kevin Stadler getting his feet up after a good day's work. The American rookie finishes with a very tidy two under and is our clubhouse leader.

Tom Kirby:, external Speed golf, doesn't matter about the number of shots you just need to get round 18 holes in the fastest possible time.

John Hopkins, Masters Annual.

Winner: Jason Day. Despite being tournament rusty he knows this course so well and has played so well in the last four years I think it is made for him.

Big week: Henrik Stenson. Something makes me think he has been too quiet now for too long. The Swede's had a quiet start to the year which is probably a reaction to all the stress and excitement he had in the last six months of last year but I think he's ready. A firm, fast golf course which we will have this week is right up his street.

Read more predictions from the experts.

Miguel Angel Jimenez goes it alone at the front with his fourth birdie of a faultless front nine to reach the turn one shot ahead of the rest.

Elsewhere Angel Cabrera bounces back from a triple bogey on 11 with a birdie on 12. Still five over though...

There is a senior Tour feel to the top of the leaderboard, Sandy Lyle racks up a third successive birdie to join Jonas Blixt and Miguel Angel Jimenez at the top of the leaderboard on three under.

A round-wrecker of a hole for 2009 champion Angel Cabrera on 11. The big Argentine huffs off the 12th green with a seven on his card and a bee in his bonnet. He is back out to six over.

There are plenty of tales in other sports of Australians coming to represent England, but Oliver Goss, teeing off at 17:31 BST, was born in Frimley, Surrey, but moved to Australia at a young age.

Goss also doesn't have too many fond memories of Augusta. He visited in February to play the course for the second time, but picked a week when the area was hit by a huge snowstorm that left him stranded in his hotel for three days and also experienced an earthquake during the course of the trip!