The cream has risen to the top of the leaderboard at the 150th Open Championship. Cameron Smith commands the solo lead at 13 under heading into the weekend with Cameron Young, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Viktor Hovland, Scottie Scheffler and plenty other big names hot on his heels and in with a chance to raise the Claret Jug come Sunday evening at St. Andrews.
Yet it is not all good news coming out of the Old Course as a number of notable names will be absent from the field this weekend. Tiger Woods was unable to recover from his abysmal start on Thursday and never sniffed the cut line with a 9-over 153. Tiger was emotional walking down the 18th fairway, though he held out hope for a return to St. Andrews in the future. The 15-time major winner is not alone as Phil Mickelson took on water in the second round and signed for a 5-over 77 to miss the cut Friday by five strokes.
"My two-day play is I made my share of mistakes, struggled again today to get the feel of the greens. I left a lot of putts short again. Same as yesterday. And I had hit a couple of poor shots, end up in bad spots," said Woods. "And, again, I just never got anything going. And I needed to shoot a low one today, and I certainly did not do that. And hence, I won't be around on the weekend."
While the two veterans' omission from the latter stages of this championship is not all that surprising, seeing the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year slip up was a shocker. With his short trip to St. Andrews official, Collin Morikawa has become the first defending champion since Darren Clarke in 2012 to miss the cut the year after raising the Claret Jug.
The two-time major winner's poor 2022 continued at the The Open as it did for Brooks Koepka who hovered around the even-par number for the majority of his championship and ultimately fell on the wrong side of the cutline. This week concluded a forgettable major season for the 32-year-old as he missed the cut at the Masters and was unable to capture a top-50 finish at either the PGA Championship or U.S. Open. It marks the end of an impressive streak as it had been eight years since Koepka was held without a top-10 finish in a major championship in a season.
Those unlucky souls who will not be around this weekend will have to wait until April of 2023 for their next shot at glory. It was a fast, compact major championship season, and just like that, four more opportunities have gone by the wayside.
2022 Open Championship missed cuts
- Collin Morikawa (+1)
- Webb Simpson (+1)
- Louis Oosthuizen (+1)
- Brooks Koepka (+4)
- Phil Mickelson (+5)
- Tiger Woods (+9)
Rick Gehman is joined by Mark Immelman to recap Friday's action at the 2022 Open Championship. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
