Tiger Woods will miss the cut at the 152nd Open Championship after following his opening 79 with a 6-over-par 77 on Friday at Royal Troon in Troon, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
At 14 over par, Woods stood 150th of 154 golfers as the second round was in progress.
“I’ve always loved playing major championships. I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors,” Woods said after his round. “Obviously it tests you mentally, physically, emotionally, and I just wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be.”
The round concluded a disappointing season for the 48-year-old. He made his first start of the season in February at the Genesis Invitational, his foundation’s tournament, but had to withdraw early in his second round due to illness.
Woods made the cut at the Masters — for a record-breaking 24th straight start — but finished last among the 60 golfers who played the weekend. Then came missed cuts at the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open, where he never shot a round of par or better.
“I’d like to have played more, but I just wanted to make sure that I was able to play the major championships this year,” Woods said. “I got a lot of time off to get better, to be better physically, which has been the case all year.
“I’ve gotten better, even though my results really haven’t shown it, but physically I’ve gotten better, which is great. I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again.”
Asked if he would compete at next year’s Open at Royal Portrush, Woods said, “Definitely.”
Any hopes of Woods shooting low and getting close to the projected cut line of 4 over were shot down when he double-bogeyed the second hole. He chipped his third shot to the far side of the green, chipped again and missed a 4-footer for bogey.
“I made a double there at 2 right out of the hopper when I needed to go the other way,” Woods said. “Just was fighting it pretty much all day. I never really hit it close enough to make birdies and consequently made a lot of bogeys.”
He followed a bogey at the par-3 fifth with a right-to-left, 22-foot birdie putt at the par-5 sixth. But that turned out to be his only birdie of the round. Bogeys came at Nos. 9, 12, 14 and 17 before he two-putted for par at the 18th.
Woods missed 22 of 36 greens in regulation across the two rounds. He went 7 over par on the four par-3 holes and 7 over on the par-4s.
Woods said he will not play a tournament until his usual exhibition schedule in December, the Hero World Challenge (also hosted by Woods) and the PNC Championship, a family exhibition he plays with his son Charlie.
–Field Level Media
