Woods Finally Cuts It Too Close

After a record 142 consecutive tournaments, Tiger Woods missed the cut by one shot Friday, a margin decided when his 15-foot par putt just slipped past the 18th hole at Cottonwood Valley Course in Irving, Texas.

The ball did not drop, Woods did not make the cut at the Byron Nelson Championship and he has the weekend off -- as simple as that. On the other hand, it’s completely unexpected.

Not since the 1998 AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am had Woods missed the cut, a span of more than seven years.

When it had sunk in afterward, Woods said he knew the worst part about going home instead of playing for the $1.116-million champion’s check.

“I don’t get that opportunity to win the tournament,” he said.

His two-over-par 72 coupled with his opening round of 69 left him at 141, one over for the Nelson, where Sean O’Hair and Brett Wetterich share the lead at nine-under 131.

It was a missed cut of historic as well as coincidental proportions, as it occurred at the PGA Tour event named for Nelson, whose record of 113 consecutive cuts was broken by Woods at the 2003 Tour Championship.

Woods was grateful that his streak had lasted as long as it had and blamed his failure to finish strongly.

“I didn’t quite have it,” he said.

Woods’ streak covered every tournament he played from the 1998 Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines to last week’s Wachovia Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C.

During that span, he won 37 tournaments and eight major championships.

“What was it, seven years?” he said. “That’s not too bad.”

The longest current streak is Ernie Els, who has made 20 cuts in a row.

Kevin Sutherland, who played the first two rounds in a group with Woods and Peter Lonard, said Woods’ streak was underappreciated.

“Just the streak itself is amazing. I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to make that many in a row,” Sutherland said. “That shows how hard he plays every time he tees it up.”

The last time Woods missed a cut -- when he had not been among the lowest scorers after 36 holes and in this case among the lowest 70 players and ties in a field of 156 -- deserves something of an asterisk.

At Pebble Beach, persistent rain truncated the 1998 tournament to 54 holes, but the last 18 were played in August -- more than six months after the event had begun and the day after the PGA Championship at Sahalee, Wash. Woods, who was not in contention after 36 holes at Pebble, didn’t return to finish and his withdrawal counts as a missed cut.

The only other missed cut in Woods’ pro career was the 1997 Canadian Open.

Nelson’s streak lasted parts of eight years. And in another coincidence, it began in the last tournament Woods where missed the cut before beginning his record run -- the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, the 1941 version of what is now the Pebble Beach tournament. Nelson’s streak lasted through the 1948 Colonial and ended when he withdrew from the 1949 Crosby after two rounds.

Jack Nicklaus is third on the all-time consecutive cuts list with 105, a streak that lasted nearly six years, from November 1970 to September 1976.

Woods had as many as a dozen narrow escapes during his streak, including the 2003 Masters, when he had to make par from a greenside bunker on the last hole. But his luck ran out Friday, even after he birdied the 16th. Woods was right on the cut line after a par at the 17th.

Needing par at the 18th, Woods hit a two-iron off the tee instead of his driver to make sure the ball stayed in the fairway. His approach was a seven-iron, but gusty winds took the ball into a bunker. Woods didn’t have much green to work with and could only get as close as 15 feet.

And, from there, he missed by inches.

“I just tried to bandage my way to the finish,” he said. “I figured [the cut] was even par and I need to make par. I needed to birdie a couple more holes coming in.”

Instead, he’s free to make weekend plans. Woods said he probably won’t do much different than any other time when he’s not playing a tournament, meaning he will work out and then hit the practice range.

But for the first time in seven years, it’s probably not going to feel the same.

Times wire services contributed to this report.

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Staying power

The longest streaks of making cuts in PGA Tour events:

*--* Streak Player Years 142 Tiger Woods 1998-2005 113 Byron Nelson 1941-48 105 Jack Nicklaus 1970-76 86 Hale Irwin 1975-78 72 Dow Finsterwald 1955-58 53 Tom Kite 1980-82 53 Vijay Singh 1995-98 Ernie Els (20) has longest current streak.

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Source: PGA Tour