ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Cut day brings both joy and misery to the field of 156 that began on Thursday with a chance of hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy.
Some such as Tyrrell Hatton, who bounced back from an opening-round 77 with a 68, and world No. 4 Patrick Cantlay (74-67) have renewed faith that they can continue to vault up the leaderboard and join the trophy hunt. Harold Varner III was on the cutline after a double bogey at No. 11 and responded brilliantly. He closed with five consecutive threes on the card, four of them birdies, and is back in the mix at 1 over. Defending champion Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, who is seeking to complete the career Grand Slam with a win, both needed to sink 8-foot putts to make the cut and they drained them. In all 76 golfers made it to the weekend at 5-over 145 or better.
But for the men on this list, the chase is over and they’re none too happy about it. A couple of them blew up, shooting 80, while another made bogey at the last to have the weekend off. Here’s the bad news for some of the best in the world who didn’t have their good stuff this week.
Matt Fitzpatrick +6
Fitzpatrick made bogey on his final two holes to miss the cut by one stroke.
But the damage was done on Thursday, a round in which the Englishman failed to make a birdie and made six bogeys, including twice on back-to-back holes and shot 76.
The missed cut snapped a streak of five straight made cuts, including the RBC Heritage. He’s missed five of 10 cuts.
Fitzpatrick hit just four fairways in each round and putted poorly on Thursday. He also struggled mightily on the par 4s, playing them collectively in 6 over.
Rickie Fowler (6 over)
Fowler shot a pair of 73s and the problem was a lack of birdies: just three in 36 holes.
Fowler ranked third in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee but his approach and scrambling ranked in triple digits. His scrambling – 4 for 13 – was abysmal, and his putter let him down in the second round as he lost nearly three strokes to the field and ranked 152nd.
Fowler had made 12 cuts in a row, and missed just his second cut of the season (Shriners Children’s Open in October). He had finished in the top 20 in eight of his last nine starts and climbed back into the top 50 in the world at No. 49.
Billy Horschel (6 over)
A bogey at the last doomed Horschel. He drove into a fairway bunker and didn’t advance the ball from the sand. He wedged out to the fairway, pitched long of the green and then chipped in but it was one too many.
Horschel opened with a 71 but made just one birdie on Friday en route to 75. He hit just 5 of 14 fairways on Friday and lost more than two strokes to the field on his approach shots.
He’s missed six cuts in 14 starts this season. Horschel entered the week 109th in the Fed Ex Cup standings and needs to get moving if he’s going to qualify for the playoffs, which is limited to the top 70 this season. In two weeks, he’ll defend his title at the Memorial.
Jason Day (8 over)
One week after winning for the first time on the PGA Tour in more than five years, Day experienced a rollercoaster second round in his bid to survive the cut.
Day, who opted not to play a practice round in order to save his energy, failed to make a birdie and struggled to a 6-over 76 on Thursday.
On Friday, he made five birdies, but also three double bogeys. With a birdie at 15, he rallied to 5 over and on the right side of the cut line. But he made bogey at 16 and a double at 17 to thwart his bid to play the weekend.
Day has missed the cut in two of his last three starts — of course, the other start was a win so this isn’t exactly a slump — and it was just his fourth missed cut in 17 starts this season.
Tom Kim (8 over)
The 20-year-old Korean made headlines for his mud bath at the sixth hole on Thursday when he shot 73, but his Friday performance was a mess too.
Despite making par at No. 6 this time, Kim was 4 over in his first seven holes on Friday before he carded his first birdie. But he made four more bogeys on the back nine to shoot 75 and miss just his third cut in 17 starts this season.
Kim missed the cut at the PGA for the second straight year.
Harris English (9 over)
Coming off a T-3 at the Wells Fargo Championship, English has to be disappointed with his performance at Oak Hill. He only made one birdie on Thursday, posting 74. He shot himself out of the tournament on Friday making four straight bogeys beginning at No. 5 and didn’t make birdie until No. 12.
He struggled mightily around the green, getting up and down just once in eight attempts on Friday and 5-for-15 for the championship.
Cameron Young (9 over)
Young’s streak of 17 straight cuts dating to the Genesis Scottish Open in July has come to an end. He was a perfect 12-for-12 this season but didn’t make a birdie until his 18th hole of his opening round. He signed for 74 and shot one more than that on Friday. While he made three birdies in a five-hole stretch and had it back to 2 over, his momentum stalled with a boneheaded mistake.
On No. 16, Young failed to move his marker back on the green to the original spot after placing it one clubhead away to get out of the line of Tommy Fleetwood and Hideki Matsuyama, his playing partners.
“As a result, when he replaced the ball and holed out, Young had played from a wrong place and incurred the General Penalty (two strokes) for breaching Rule 15.3,” the PGA Championship Rules Committee said in a statement.
Talor Gooch (10 over)
Some missed cuts hurt more than others and for Gooch it means he won’t be in the U.S. Open unless the USGA does an about face and changes a rule it introduced this year.
Despite leaving for LIV Golf, Gooch still managed to finish 29th in the FedEx Cup standings and qualify for the Tour Championship. That got him into the Masters but the USGA added a stipulation that players finishing in the top 30 had to be eligible for the Tour Championship, which Gooch was not.
As a result, Gooch, who entered the week No. 63 in the world, needed a strong result to have a chance to improve his world ranking (the top 60 after the Memorial are exempt for the U.S. Open). Given that he didn’t sign up for U.S. Open sectional qualifying, the PGA was Gooch’s de facto U.S. Open qualifier and he missed the cut.
Kevin Kisner (13 over)
Kisner is trying hard but he can’t seem to get off the struggle bus, shooting 13 over at Oak Hill to miss the cut. Kisner entered the week at No. 190 in the FedEx Cup standings. He tried changing coaches – splitting with John Tillery in the fall but after missing the cut at the Masters and shooting 79 and withdrawing at the RBC Heritage, he recently returned to Tillery, who has helped Kisner since his Korn Ferry Tour days.
Kisner has missed the cut in six of his last seven stroke-play events and also has a WD. He hasn’t had a top-10 finish since the Travelers Championship last June. He hasn’t shot in the 60s in his last 17 rounds on Tour dating to the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
It was a case of Trading Places for Kisner, who ranked 147th out of 156 players in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach on Thursday, but 15th in in Strokes Gained: Putting. On Friday, he improved to 20th in SG: Approach but tumbled to 149th in SG: Putting.
Sungjae Im (13 over)
Im’s name was bandied about as a potential winner at the start of the week but missed the cut thanks to a disastrous 10-over 80 on Thursday. It was his first score in the 80s since the second round of the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship. Im didn’t make a single birdie in his first round.
Im, ranked 18th in the world, missed just his second cut in 18 starts this season, and snapped a streak of playing the weekend in his last 12 starts.
He ranked 145th in Strokes Gained: Approach and lost nearly four strokes to the field Tee-to-Green in the opening round (147).
Sam Burns (14 over)
Burns will try his best to forget the miserable performance that was his 36-hole stint at Oak Hill before he defends his title next week at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Burns was ejected from the PGA Championship early after making two triple bogeys – at Nos. 2 and 4 – on Friday en route to posting 10-over 80.
On Thursday, he managed just one birdie on his way to 4-over 74.
Burns ranked dead last among the field of 156 in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, losing more than five strokes on Friday. Burns missed his second straight cut and fourth in 16 starts this season.
He did leave Oak Hill on a positive note: he canned a 35-foot birdie putt at 18.
Webb Simpson (14 over)
Simpson received a special invite into the PGA but couldn’t take advantage of it. He shot a pair of 77s to miss his seventh cut in 13 starts this season. It’s been a disappointing season for Simpson, who entered the week ranked 153rd in the FedEx Cup.
Simpson’s fate was sealed on two holes — Nos. 14 and 17. He made double bogey on both of those holes on each day.
