Tiger misses cut at PGA after shooting second-round 73
Unable to mount a late charge, Tiger Woods missed the cut Saturday morning in the 97th PGA Championship at Whistling Straits Golf Course in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Friday’s second round was suspended due to inclement weather, with Woods playing the 14th hole. After opening with a 3-over-par 75 on Thursday, Tiger was 1-over when second round play resumed Saturday and knew he likely needed to play the last five holes in 2-under to qualify for the final two rounds.
Paired with Martin Kaymer and Keegan Bradley, Woods bogeyed the par-4 14th hole, parred 15 and 16, made a nice 10-foot birdie putt at the 225-yard, par-3 17th and parred 18 to shoot 73. As predicted, his 4-over total of 148 missed the cut by two strokes, marking the first time in his career the 14-time major winner has missed the cut in three straight majors.
Matt Jones is the leader at 11-under 133.
“I hit it good enough to where I needed to be, but I putted awful,” Tiger said.
Woods said he finally figured something out on the putting green with his setup on Saturday morning. On Thursday, he used 33 putts.
“But the damage had already been done,” he said. “Finally rolled the ball coming in, and unfortunately it was a little too late.”
Asked what he would do after meeting with the media, Tiger said, “I’m going to go home and watch the leaders tee off and play. Probably in Florida. Actually, I’ll go to my sports bar. How about that?”
On Monday, his new restaurant, The Woods Jupiter, opened for business.
On Friday, Tiger entered next week’s Wyndham Championship in hopes of qualifying for the upcoming FedEx Cup playoffs. As it stands, Woods would likely have to win the event to earn enough points and will spend the next few days deciding whether to play.
“I’ll go through it with my team,” Tiger said. “We’ll talk about it, what I need to do, and see if it’s the right move or not.”
Regardless of what he does, Woods said he still plans to play much more competitive golf this year.
“Unfortunately, I’m potentially missing out on the playoffs,” he said. “But I still have a lot of golf left. We have some other tournaments that I’m going to be playing in, plus overseas events. So there’s plenty of golf left to be played.”
While his scores don’t reflect it, Tiger remains positive about his game and feels he has made significant progress this year.
“The confidence is growing quickly,” said the 39-year-old Woods. “That’s the fun part of it. I’m hitting shots and able to hit shots that I haven’t been able to hit in years. And to have the control that I need to have going forward, it’s starting to come back, which is nice.”
