Tiger Woods stumbles at the Memorial, faces possible missed cut

DUBLIN, Ohio – A late rally from a struggling Tiger Woods ensured his perfect record of making the cut at the Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide continued.

Woods, playing for the first time since February, stumbled from his T18 overnight position to a tie for 64th thanks to a 4-over 76 at Muirfield Village on Friday morning. It left him 3-over for the tournament and in danger of missing the weekend for the first time at Jack Nicklaus’ Ohio gem.

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The 82-time PGA TOUR winner and five-time event champion finished his round outside the cut line but received some help from the afternoon wave to make it on the number and ensure he has made the weekend in all 18 attempts at the tournament.

With just three holes to go in his second round that possibility seemed remote at best as he sat five over for the week but two birdies and a clutch par in the closing stretch ensured the faintest of chances to record a record 83rd win.

“Always have,” Woods said afterwards when he was asked if he considered himself a grinder.

“I think that anyone who fights all day, I think that's the guys that have typically been grinders, guys that don't ever want to make bogeys.”

Woods will be hoping his troublesome back, which has undergone multiple surgeries, will be a little looser in the third round. The 44-year-old confirmed he was a little tight on Friday after feeling stiff during his warmup.

“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 warmup. 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.

“Aging 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.”

Starting on the 10th hole Woods was able to shake off missing a three-foot birdie putt on the par-5 11th hole by sticking his tee shot on the par-3 12th to two-feet. He knocked that in to be two under for the tournament and seemingly ready to make a move into serious contention.

But instead of kicking ahead, Woods immediately started to retreat backwards. A three-putt bogey on the 13th was followed by a sloppy bogey on the par-5 16th and another on the par-4 17th when trouble in the rough plagued him throughout the hole.

The birdie looks he had on 14, 15 and 18 wouldn’t drop to offset the mistakes leaving Woods making the turn two-over.

Then things got even rougher.

Woods missed the par-4 first green short and left leaving a tough lie for his chip shot. His attempt came out hot and ran into a bunker from which he was unable to get up and down. The double bogey was compounded by a bogey on the following hole when his tee shot sailed right and fell near a creek bed.

Another bogey on the par-4 sixth seemingly put an end to his weekend chances but Woods refused to give in. He birdied the par-5 eighth and then holed a 19-foot, 11-inch birdie putt on the par-3 eighth to claw his way back.

A wayward tee ball on his final hole forced a pitch out and wedge approach before a clutch seven-foot par putt found the cup allowing a modicum of hope.

“I finished birdie-birdie-par. That's about the only positive to it today,” Woods said.

“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.”

Woods’ position in the tournament was helped by another day of tough course conditions as Muirfield starts to bake out and get hard and fast. With renovations set for immediately after the event there is less concern over the health of the putting surfaces which are due to be replaced.

It wasn’t the greens that hurt Bryson DeChambeau though as his run of top 10s came to end. The recent Rocket Mortgage Challenge champion and former Memorial winner suffered a quintuple bogey 10 on the par-5 15th hole to finish at 5 over par.

Other big names to finish early included Sungjae Im (+4), Rickie Fowler (+5) and former Memorial Tournament winners Justin Rose (+5) and Hideki Matsuyama (+7). Dustin Johnson shot his second consecutive 80 to be way off the pace at 16 over.