Missing the cut

[Cliff Hamm]

What does it say about the set up, not the course, when the following miss the cut: Mickleson, Bjorn, Donald, Immelman, Cink, Choi, Harrington, Goosen, Garcia, Love, Stenson,
Scott, Montgomerie, Elkington.  Would make quite a leaderboard and certainly better than what we have.

[Geoffrey Childs]

What does it say about the set up, not the course, when the following miss the cut: Mickleson, Bjorn, Donald, Immelman, Cink, Choi, Harrington, Goosen, Garcia, Love, Stenson,
Scott, Montgomerie, Elkington.  Would make quite a leaderboard and certainly better than what we have.

It says that they didn't play well enough!  

[David Kelly]

Geoff of course nailed it. I'm not thrilled with the set up but a list of who didn't make the cut says nothing.  

BTW I think Cabrera making the birdie on 18 did Mickelson a huge favor as Phil wasn't going to win anyway and now he can rest his wrist and not have to worry about aggravating it while out there on the weekend flogging around.

[JohnV]

If the USGA cut to the low 70 and ties as does the PGA Tour, Mickelson, Bjorn and Donald would all have made the cut.


I was the referee Thursday with Donald and Goosen.  Retief hit it terribly, missing it left and right.  Donald shot 74, which was respectable, but had one terrible double bogey in that.  Looking at today's round, he never made a birdie, averaged 2.00 putts per hole and made two doubles.  While he might have hit a pretty high percentage of fairways, he obviously didn't putt well.

[Phil McDade]

Nicklaus missed the cut at Brookline in '63 the year after winning the Open at Oakmont; conditions at Brookline that year were particularly tough, with a winning score of +9.

[Jim Sweeney]

Cabrera hit the anil on the head in his news conference. When asked how he felt about knocking Phil out of the tournament, he said,"I did,t knock him out, he knocked himself out." I'd say this guy gets it.

Why do Phil and others sound so surprised with the set up? What did they expect? As far as the set up is concerned, it is not different from last year, just a different course.

[Cliff Hamm]

 As far as the set up is concerned, it is not different from last year, just a different course.

Therein lies the problem.  I felt exactly the same way about WF. Fairways are simply too narrow.  Especially for a golf course that has such wonderful greens, which protect par just fine, thank you.  

On another thread you agreed that perhaps adding more intermediate/short rough would be advisable.  Couldn't agree more.  OK to keep the fairways at their width but extend the first cut.  This will not overly penalize the errant drive that is not awful.  It would lead to more exciting golf and also a more attractive leaderboard.  THE USGA has been fond of protecting par and identifying the best golfer.  I'm not sure that this set up is identifying the best golfers.  

[Garland Bayley]

What does it say about the set up, not the course, when the following miss the cut: Mickleson, Bjorn, Donald, Immelman, Cink, Choi, Harrington, Goosen, Garcia, Love, Stenson,
Scott, Montgomerie, Elkington.  Would make quite a leaderboard and certainly better than what we have.

What  does it say about cuts in general when Sabbatini, Appleby, Choi, Woods, Campbell(both), DiMarco, Leonard, Pettersson, Love, Goosen, Garcia, Ames, Z Johnson, and several other recent and past major winners miss the cut.

It says people play poorly and miss the cut!

The above cut line brought to you by the good folks at the USGA and at Winged Foot.