By Rahul Banerji
Tiger Woods had to wait for others around him to falter on a testing Muirfield course to make his 18th cut from as many starts at the Memorial tournament in Ohio on Friday.
The five-time winner began the event well with a 1-under but the second day horrors saw him card a 4-over 76 and on the bubble for the cut at 3-over 147 and in a tie for 64th place.
Fortunately, with the course set up to bite, and bite hard, others were worse off at the $9.3 million tournament.
Big-hitting Tony Finau held on to the lead for a second straight day on 9-under 135 and was joined by fellow-American Ryan Palmer with Spain’s Jon Rahm a shot behind.
A win on Sunday will hand Rahm possession of the world number one ranking for the first time,
Bryson DeChambeu, winner last week at the Rocket Mortgage Challenge, had a 5-over-par 10 on the 15th hole to virtually seal his exit – and the cut line to give Woods an assist.
Big scalps
The Professor was just one of the big names not making it to the money rounds.
Four of the resumed season’s five winners did not make it past the number – DeChambeau, Daniel Berger (Charles Schwab Challenge), Webb Simpson ((RBC Heritage) and Dustin Johnson (Travellers Championship).
Also exiting were former winners Justin Rise and Hideki Matsuyama, besides Rickie Fowler and a few Asian tigers from Korea, Japan and Thailand.
Tiger needed to pull out some vintage play to actually survive, going birdie-birdie-par over his last three holes to keep his sheet clean at the event hosted by fellow-great Jack Nicklaus.
“I finished birdie-birdie-par. That’s about the only positive to it today,” he said later.
“I three-putted two holes early, and whatever kind of momentum I was going to create, I stifled that early and fought it the rest of the day.”
Back woes return
There were also worries about his back, to rest which he had taken an extended break after February.
“I wasn’t quite moving as well as I’d like and couldn’t quite turn back and couldn’t quite clear. It was a bit of a struggle,” Woods said.
“It started this morning during the warm-up. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d like, and it is what it is.
“The last four or five years have been difficult as I’ve gone through procedures and have tried to come back. It’s going to happen more times than not.
“Ageing is not fun. Early on in my career I thought it was fantastic because I was getting better and better and better, and now I’m just trying to hold on.”
Also read: Tiger Woods returns to action at Memorial next week
Discover more from Tee Time Tales
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.