McIlroy's charge falls short, misses cut by one shot at The Open Championship

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – For years, Rory McIlroy has dreamt of walking down Royal Portrush’s 18th hole to a standing ovation.

He received one, but two days earlier than he hoped. The fans cheered McIlroy for fighting to make the cut at a tournament that he won five years earlier.

McIlroy’s Open Championship dreams were dashed from the start after his first tee shot went out-of-bounds. The fans still showed up Friday to support the local boy, even after his 79.

“I didn't know how people were going to react yesterday, how many people were going to be on the first tee,” McIlroy said. “To have that many people out there following me, supporting me, cheering my name, it meant the world to me.

I'm glad, to some degree, I gave them something to cheer about today.”

It looked like McIlroy would need another course record Friday just to make the cut. He shot 61 at Royal Portrush when he was 16, but the track has been toughened since then.

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His second-round 65 at The Open tied the low score of the tournament and riveted the fans at Royal Portrush who stuck around on a cold and cloudy afternoon. It was around 8 p.m. when McIlroy signed his scorecard. The support from his countrymen clearly had an impact on McIlroy, who struggled for words during his post-round interviews.

“As much as I came here at the start of the week saying I wanted to do it for me, you know, by the end of the round there today I was doing it just as much for them as I was for me,” McIlroy said. “I wanted to be here for the weekend. Selfishly I wanted to feel that support for two more days.

“To play in front of those crowds today and to feel that momentum and really dig in, it's going to be a tough one to get over.”

The weekend still seemed far away after McIlroy made two birdies on Friday’s front nine. He produced a riveting display on the back nine, though. He birdied Nos. 10-12 before making bogey on the par-3 13th after hitting into a bunker. He bounced back with another birdie on the 14th hole before saving par from another bunker on the 15th.

Royal Portrush’s 16th hole is named Calamity Corner for good reason. The 230-yard hole has a steep drop-off right of the green. McIlroy lasered a long-iron to 10 feet and made the putt on the course’s third-hardest hole. He needed one more birdie on the last two holes to keep his hopes alive.

He drove into the rough on 17, but played a deft wedge shot that landed just over a bunker and rolled to 12 feet. He just missed the birdie putt. On the last hole, his aggressive approach was a hair too far to the left, rolling down a hill. His fate was sealed when his chip failed to fall.

“The last week has been a real eye-opener for me,” McIlroy said. “Sometimes you're so far away and you forget about all the people that are cheering you on back home. And then you come and play in front of them. It definitely hit me like a ton of bricks today.”

He wasn’t the only big name to miss the cut by a shot.

Brandt Snedeker, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston and Brian Harman, who got in the field as an alternate, all finished at 2 over.

Day bogeyed five of his last six holes to shoot 74 and miss the cut by a stroke. It was his first missed cut in nine starts in this championship.

This Open was always going to be historic. It was the tournament’s first visit to Royal Portrush in nearly 70 years.

But a more ignominious piece of history was made Friday: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the same major for the first time.

Woods shot 78-70, the second-highest 36-hole score of his career in this event. After winning the Masters, he played the final three majors of the year in 9 over par. It was the first time since 2015 that he missed multiple cuts in majors.

“You can't compare the two,” Woods said. “Those were some of the lowest times of my life. This is not. This is just me not playing well and not scoring well, and adds up to high scores.”

Woods and Mickelson have both missed the cut in just three other PGA TOUR events: the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open, 2012 A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier and 1993 AT&T Byron Nelson.

Mickelson played alongside 36-hole co-leader Shane Lowry. Lowry beat him by 16 shots over 36 holes.

Mickelson’s last top-10 in a major came in his famous duel with Henrik Stenson in the 2016 Open at Royal Troon. Mickelson’s best finish in a major since then is T18.

U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, who played alongside McIlroy, also missed the cut after shooting 74-71. This was Woodland’s first missed cut in eight Open starts.

Zach Johnson, the 2015 Open champion, missed the cut for the first time since 2006, ending a streak of 12 consecutive cuts made in this event. He’d finished in the top 25 in seven of the past eight Opens.

McIlroy wasn’t the only player from Northern Ireland with a heartbreaking finish.

Darren Clarke, the 2011 Open champion, triple-bogeyed the last hole to finish at 3 over par, missing the cut by two shots. Clarke is a member at Royal Portrush and hit the first tee shot of the tournament. He quickly rushed off the green after his difficult finish.

Bryson DeChambeau finished at 5-over 147. Since the start of 2017, his best finish in a major is T25. Marc Leishman shot 8-over 150. He’d made five consecutive cuts in The Open, including three top-6 finishes.

McIlroy wasn’t the only former Open champion with an impressive finish. David Duval never threatened to make the cut, but his determination to play to the end was admirable. He shot 20-over 91 in the first round, including a 14 on the par-5 seventh hole. He was 8 over par on his first nine holes Friday, as well. He still played hard, shooting 1 under on his back nine.