By Mark Lamport-Stokes
TROON, Scotland (Reuters) – World number two Rory McIlroy and three-times winner Tiger Woods led a long list of former champions who missed the British Open cut after a windswept second round at Royal Troon on Friday.
McIlroy, who lifted the Claret Jug in 2014 at Hoylake, made a premature exit from the year’s final major after struggling to an opening 78 and following up with a 75.
The cut fell at six-over 142 with 80 players advancing to Saturday’s third round.
A missed birdie putt from five feet at the last summed up a disappointing week for McIlroy, who had been bidding to end a decade-long wait for his fifth major title after his late meltdown cost him the chance to win last month’s U.S. Open.
“I got off to the worst start possible today, being six-over through six, but then played the last 12 holes pretty well, bogey-free,” the Northern Irishman told reporters.
“If I need to remember something about this week, it’ll be the last few holes that I played.
“I didn’t adapt well at all to that left-to-right wind yesterday on the back nine, and then this afternoon going out in that gusty wind on the front, it got the better of me,” added the Northern Irishman, who bogeyed the third, ran up a triple at the fourth and dropped shots at the fifth and sixth.
Woods, who competed in all four majors this year for the first time since 2019 after struggling with his health in recent years, missed the cut by a wide margin after scores of 79 and 77.
“Well, it wasn’t very good,” the 48-year-old American said of his second round. “I made a double (bogey) there at two right out of the hopper when I needed to go the other way. Just was fighting it pretty much all day. I never really hit it close enough to make birdies and consequently made a lot of bogeys.”
Other former champions who missed the cut were Australian Cameron Smith, the 2022 winner at St Andrews, Italy’s Francesco Molinari, Swede Henrik Stenson, who won the previous Open at Troon in 2016, Americans Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink, Justin Leonard and Todd Hamilton, and South African Louis Oosthuizen.
Also missing out after withdrawing from the tournament before the second round were twice winner Ernie Els of South Africa and American John Daly, the 1995 champion at St Andrews.
Other big names who failed to make the cut were Sweden’s world number four Ludvig Aberg, ninth-ranked American Bryson DeChambeau, the U.S. Open champion, and Norway’s world number seven Viktor Hovland.
Seven players ranked in the world’s top 12 made an early exit from Royal Troon.
(Editing by Ed Osmond)
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