Tiger Woods will be missing the weekend action at the 2024 Open Championship. Carding an 8-over 79 on Thursday, the 48-year-old failed to threaten the cutline Friday morning as the squares continued to pile up on his scorecard and the circles were few and far between resulting in a second-round 77.
Dating back to 2014, Woods has secured a weekend tee time just once -- the 2018 Open at Carnoustie where he finished T6.
Woods' 14-over total of 156 strokes ties the 2015 U.S. Open for the worst 36-hole performance of his major career. It has not been easy for the 15-time major champion in 2024, but he hasn't performed this poorly; he previously made the cut at the Masters before carding rounds of 72-77 at the PGA Championship and 74-73 at the U.S. Open en route to missed cuts. After a strong start to his first round, Woods battled the elements and his game the rest of the way.
"I'd like to have played more, but I just wanted to make sure that I was able to play the major championships this year," Woods said. "I got a lot of time off to get better, to be better physically, which has been the case all year. I've gotten better even though my results really haven't shown it, but physically I've gotten better, which is great. I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again."
Entering the second round needing a score in the 60s to see the weekend, Woods immediately got off on the wrong foot. A double bogey on his second hole took whatever remaining wind out of Woods' sails and pushed him to 10 over for the championship.
Another bogey on No. 5 was offset immediately by a birdie on the long par-5 6th -- Woods' third and final birdie of the tournament. Marking down four more bogeys on his scorecard the rest of the way, Woods was unable to clean up short-range par saves and continued to drift down the leaderboard.
Tiger scores his first birdie of the day at the long 6th hole. pic.twitter.com/NMSSNPCMdv
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 19, 2024
Woods's name was above just four others by the time he walked off the 18th green Friday. Competing in another major championship in which he failed to contend and failed to inspire hope in his game, Woods must continue to answer questions about the viability of another possible win. It won't be coming anytime soon, and it will not be coming in 2024 as Woods is done for the season after his latest major disappointment.
"I'm not going to play until then [the Hero World Challenge]," Woods said. "I'm going to just keep getting physically better and keep working on it. Hopefully just come back for our ... what is it, our fifth major, the Father/Son, so looking forward to it."
