Tiger Woods among notables to miss cut at The British Open Championship Royal Troon

Tiger Woods lamented his lack of competitive reps, never got anything going, and never came close to making the cut at The Open Championship at Royal Troon.

Woods, who saw the toughest conditions as part of the less favorable early-late wave, will miss the cut at Royal Troon after shooting 14-over 156 (79-77). The performance marked his highest opening two rounds at a major since the 2015 U.S. Open.

“I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors,” Woods said. “It tests you mentally, physically, emotionally and I just wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be.

“I was hoping I would find it somehow,” he continued after his third straight missed cut (PGA Championship, U.S. Open, Open Championship) in the wake of a solo 60th at The Masters Tournament. “I just never did, and consequently my results and scores were pretty high.”

Max Homa had a better time of it Friday. He knew he needed his nearly 30-footer to drop on 18 to get to 6-over par and with a chance to play the weekend, and when he drained the birdie he looked to the heavens and roared. So did the crowd that ringed the 18th green.

It was one of the day’s loudest cheers for a man who was more than a dozen shots off the lead.

“I don't know, maybe I'm just proud of myself,” said Homa, who will make the cut on the number. “This is my favorite tournament in the world, so to have the chance to potentially play two more days, I don't know, I had an out-of-body experience. I didn't really expect to yell like I won a golf tournament. It just felt really good. I felt like I fought all day.”

The Open cuts the field to the low 70 players and ties after the first two rounds.

The most notable casualty of the cut was Rory McIlroy, who was trying to rebound from a deflating opening-round 78 in the worst of the weather on Thursday. He got off to a terrible start Friday, though, including a triple-bogey 8 at the par-5 fourth hole.

“Obviously got off to the worst start possible today, being 6-over through six,” McIlroy said. “But then played the last 12 holes pretty well, bogey-free. If I need to remember something about this week, it'll be the last few holes that I played.”

Joining Woods and McIlroy outside the cut line were Henrik Stenson (77-73), Nick Taylor (75-75), Min Woo Lee (71-80), Francesco Molinari (73-78), Tommy Fleetwood (76-75), Ludvig Åberg (75-76), Bryson DeChambeau (76-75), Tony Finau (71-81), Viktor Hovland (75-77), Tom Kim (76-77), Cameron Smith (80-74), Sahith Theegala (77-79) and Wyndham Clark (78-80).

Many of these players competed early Thursday and late Friday, when some of the pre-tournament favorites seemed to struggle the most.

"It was tough," said Fleetwood. "Yeah, look, conditions are tough, the golf course is tough. But it's your job to figure it out and to put in a score, and I just couldn't do that."

With his week at Royal Troon coming to an end, this also marks the conclusion of Woods’ competitive calendar for 2024 (at least in official events). He was a combined 44-over par in the year’s four majors, finishing last among players who made the cut at the Masters and missing the cut at the other three. His scoring average in those four events was 75.6 strokes.

The only other event he played in 2024 was The Genesis Invitational, which he hosts at Los Angeles’ Riviera Country Club. He shot 72 in the opening round before withdrawing from the second round with the flu.

“Hopefully next year will be a little bit better than this year,” he said.

While his son Charlie begins play Monday in the U.S. Junior Amateur at Michigan’s Oakland Hills Country Club, Tiger won’t be seen playing publicly until the Hero World Challenge and the PNC Championship at the end of the year.

“I’m not going to play until (the Hero),” Woods said. “I’m just going to keep getting physically better and keep working on it.”

Clark’s struggles continued at Troon, where he shot 16-over 158 (78-80). The 2023 U.S. Open champion was 39-over par in the 2024 majors, missing the cut at the Masters (151, 7-over) and PGA Championship (146, 4-over) and finishing T56 in his U.S. Open defense (292, 12-over).