AUGUSTA, Ga. – Max Homa has endured a difficult season, working through changes to his swing, his equipment and, recently, his caddie.

Despite all those changes, Homa was able to enjoy a made cut in the Masters and the two additional rounds at Augusta National that it guaranteed.

Homa was 3-over par for the tournament when he bogeyed his first hole Friday, but he made 14 pars and three birdies the rest of the way. Birdies on the second nine’s two par 5s were the margin that allowed him to make his first 36-hole cut since last year’s Open Championship in July (not counting no-cut events).

“It was a real battle in between my ears,” Homa said. He arrived at Augusta National having missed his five previous cuts, shooting 26 over par in those 10 rounds.

“(The cut) was clearly on my mind,” he said. “I haven’t played a weekend in a couple months. It was kind of a fun battle to do that.”

In all, 53 players made the Masters cut with a score of 2-over 146 or better. This was the lowest cut in an April Masters since 2015 (the cut at the Masters in November 2020 was 144).

Homa wasn’t the only one to endure cut-line drama at the year’s first major. Two Masters legends were eyeing the cut before unfortunately falling one shot short. Both Bernhard Langer, 67, and Fred Couples, 65, had an opportunity to make the cut before bogeying the final hole.

Langer, playing his 41st and final Masters, missed a 10-foot par putt on 18 and missed the cut by one after rounds of 74 and 73. Not only would making the putt have extended the two-time champion’s Masters career by two rounds, but it also would have made him the oldest player to ever make the cut at Augusta National.

“It was a very special last two days for me,” Langer, the 1985 and 1993 Masters champion, said.

Langer owned that record for oldest to make a Masters cut until Couples broke it two years ago. Couples needed a birdie at 18 to extend his record but made bogey after driving into the trees right of the fairway. Couples shot 77 on Friday after a 1-under 71 on Thursday that made him the second-oldest player to shoot under par at the Masters (Tom Watson was a month older when he shot under par in 2015).

It was Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, who put the green jacket on Langer’s shoulders when Langer won his second Masters a year later. Their performance this week at Augusta National, more than three decades after they shared the stage at the tournament’s trophy ceremony, is a testament to their longevity.

They weren’t the only Masters champions to miss the cut Friday, though. Adam Scott’s missed cut ended a streak of 15 in a row, the ninth-longest in tournament history. He would have passed Jack Nicklaus on the consecutive cuts made list if he had made the weekend.

Dustin Johnson (74-73), the 2020 champion, also missed the cut by one, while 2017 winner Sergio Garcia (72-76) and 2003 champion Mike Weir (75-73) tied Couples at 4 over. Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, shot 77-72. He was tied by three-time Masters winner Phil Mickelson (75-74). Mickelson played his final four holes in 4 over to shoot 74 on Friday. Two-time Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal (77-74) and 2009 winner Angel Cabrera (75-80), who won Sunday on PGA TOUR Champions, also failed to advance to the weekend.

All five amateurs in the field also missed the cut. Justin Hastings, the Latin American Amateur champion, shot 76-72 to lead the amateur contingent, but a player must complete 72 holes to earn low amateur honors. Hastings, No. 12 in PGA TOUR University, finished T13 at this year’s Mexico Open at VidantaWorld.

Russell Henley, the world’s seventh-ranked player who won this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, shot 68 on Friday but missed the cut by one after a first-round 79. Five-time major winner Brooks Koepka eagled the 15th to reach even par for the tournament, but he bogeyed the 17th and made a quadruple-bogey 8 at 18 to miss the cut by three.

Tom Kim and Jordan Spieth both bogeyed the 18th hole Friday but were among the players who made the cut on the number. Akshay Bhatia, Patrick Cantlay and PLAYERS runner-up J.J. Spaun also finished at 2-over. Spaun made a 5-foot birdie putt on 17, the fifth-hardest hole of the day, and parred the 18th, to make the cut. Cantlay hit an 181-yard approach to 6 feet on 18 and made the birdie putt to advance to the weekend.

It was one of just two birdies made Friday on No. 18, which played to a 4.6 scoring average and was the hardest hole of the day.