PGA cut line LIVE updates: Spieth out? Rory in? Surprises, blow-ups, more
Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler tee off at 1:47 p.m. Friday.
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It’s Friday afternoon at the PGA Championship. We’ve got surprises all over the leaderboard; some dark horses at the top and some superstars fighting just to make the cut. So let’s watch together! My name is Dylan Dethier and I’ll provide live updates throughout the afternoon. Let’s get it going.
CURRENT PROJECTED CUT: At this point the cut looks destined to settle at 1 over par, per DataGolf. Their model now has that as the number with 100 percent confidence.
The PGA Championship’s cut rule is the following: Top 70 plus ties make the 36-hole cut.
Complete updates below.
SURPRISING PLAYERS TO MISS THE CUT
Let’s rattle through an incomplete list:
Shane Lowry (+2)
Sepp Straka (+2)
Jordan Spieth (+2)
Ludvig Aberg (+3)
Hideki Matsuyama (+3)
Justin Thomas (+3)
Keith Mitchell (+3)
Min Woo Lee (+4)
Patrick Reed (+4)
Sungjae Im (+4)
Patrick Cantlay (+6)
Jason Day (+6)
Will Zalatoris (+6)
Cameron Smith (+7)
Brooks Koepka (+9)
Justin Rose (+9)
Russell Henley (+10)
Dustin Johnson (+12)
7 p.m.: Rory McIlroy’s Grand Slam hopes for this calendar year remain technically alive, after a (mediocre) chip and two putts. But bogeys at 17 and 18 just took him from 1 under to 1 over and will gift him an early tee time.
The defending champion’s title hopes are equally not-quite-dead; Xander Schauffele is through to the weekend at 1 over, too. He’ll have his work cut out for him to extend his streak of 12 consecutive major-championship top 20s, though.
6:45 p.m. What on earth just happened?! First Rory McIlroy missed a shortie for par at No. 17, bringing him back to even par. Then, after Scheffler (5 under, and trending) and Schauffele (who’s 1 over, on the cut line) found the fairway, McIlroy pull-hooked one so far left it went left of the creek, left of the grass area left of the creek and landed on a hospitality tent. If it had settled there, he would have received a free drop, but instead it clanked off the tent and back into the penalty area. Another plot twist, though: it actually skipped over the water, giving him a stance and a play up near the green.
Never a dull moment.
SPIETH’S GRAND SLAM DEFERRED?
Look, even if Spieth made the cut at 2 over par, 10 shots off the lead, the chances he’d leapfrog the entire field, win this tournament and complete the career grand slam were…not good. But now the chances of 2 over making it through seem all but gone. Which means Spieth’s quest will have to wait at least one more year, as will the title hopes of the following folks at 2 over par:
Shane Lowry
Sepp Straka
Kurt Kitayama
Padraig Harrington
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
Tom Hoge
Jake Knapp
And it means urgency time for everybody at 3 over or worse.
6:20 p.m.: Things are looking bleaker and bleaker for the 2 overs, especially after Max Greyserman’s eagle at No. 15 just took him from 3 over to 1 over and Bud Cauley holed a five-footer for par to post 1 over. Michael Kim is about to post 1 over, too — which leaves just two players at 1 over par still on the course.
The guys at even par are taking care of business, too; just two of them have more than one hole left to play. At this point, the only real hope for the group at 2 over par is disaster for the group all the way up at 1 under par. Feels unlikely. 2 over is now T75.
6:10 p.m. ET: Whoa — suddenly 2 over par, which was T70 just moments ago, is now T73. That means the guys in the clubhouse at 2 over par need some serious help.
The good news? As the ESPN broadcast just reminded us, 16-18 is no picnic.
6 p.m. ET: LATEST UPDATES
-After a Bud Cauley birdie at No. 8, 2 over par is now T71. A true knife’s-edge moment.
-Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka are playing No. 18, each at 2 over.
-Xander Schauffele, who’s at 2 over, just hit the 15th green in two. He’ll putt for eagle and will swing the cut further towards 1 over.
-Rickie Fowler has now effectively missed the cut; he’s playing No. 18 at 4 over par.
-And by the way, Si Woo Kim just made an ace at No. 6 — he’s 5 under. No effect on the cut.
PHIL MICKELSON’S DOING…WHAT?!
…a little bit of everything, thanks. Lefty shot 79 on Thursday, which meant he was obviously going to miss the cut. But then, when he played his first 11 holes in three under, suddenly a miracle charge to the weekend felt like it was plausible.
And then came this.
Mickelson made an 8 at No. 12. And then birdied the next two holes. Through 15 holes he’s made seven birdies, three bogeys and a quad. He’s even par.
5:45 p.m. ET: Those insane things? They’re happening! And it looks like 2 over par is back in play, thanks in part to a brutal three-putt from 10 feet by Rickie Fowler at No. 16. That means 2 over par is now T-70 — so it’s just a matter of whether the birdies outnumber the bogeys the rest of the way home.
5:15 p.m. ET: Things are about to get insane around the cut line, partly due to the nature of the golf course; we’re going to see a bunch of birdies and a bunch of bogeys coming home. And when I say that I’m thinking of the birdie holes (7,8,14,15) and the bogey holes (9, 16, 17, 18) — but obviously two-stroke swings can happen elsewhere, too, like the par-4 12th, where Xander (now 2 over) just made birdie and Rory (now 1 over) just made bogey.
5 p.m. ET: Disappointing bogeys at 11 for Xander (now 3 over) and Rory (even). At this point Schauffele will be desperate for birdies at the scorable 14th and 15th — but given his driving struggles, first he just needs to hit a couple tee shots in the fairway.
Last week’s top two finishers, Sepp Straka and Shane Lowry, are currently in that zone; they’re each 1 over par through 14. Rickie Fowler is 2 over par through 14. They’ve got one last chance — and then they’ll hold on for dear life.
4:30 p.m. ET: It’s starting to get quite clumpy at the top behind Vegas at 8 under; three guys are at 6, three more at 5 and then it really gets bunched. A grand total of 37 golfers are at 2 under or better, which means that if you want to win this tournament, you’ll want to at least be a part of that pack after today. One candidate to join that group: Rory McIlroy, who is about to tap in for birdie at No. 1 to get to 1 under par.
Through 10 holes, their mega-group is a tale of three tiers: Scheffler is at 4 under, chasing down the lead. McIlroy is 1 under, trying to join that chase pack. And Schauffele is 2 over, still currently on the wrong side of the cut line.
WHAT XANDER HAS AT STAKE
Below I posted the photo of big-name pros with long made-cut streaks at majors. Xander Schauffele’s last major MC came at the 2022 Masters. What’s wild is that was also his last missed cut anywhere. Per the PGA Tour, Schauffele’s made cut streak of 63 is the longest active on Tour. Second won’t surprise you: it’s Scheffler at 53. But third? That’s Justin Thomas with 18. Have these stats been inflated in the no-cut Signature Event era? For sure. But the gap between them and the rest of the world speaks volumes; you can see who the two most consistent performers are.
Schauffele also has an historic streak of major finishes at stake: those 12 made cuts have yielded 12 consecutive top-20s. That’s ridiculous. If he can just make the weekend, it’s fair to assume he’ll keep surging. But with nine holes to play, that’s a big “if”…
4 p.m. ET: The projected cut line has shifted; DataGolf now has 1 over par favored rather than 2 over. That’s massive news for Jordan Spieth, who fist-pumped a par putt that got him to 2 over at the conclusion of his morning round. It’s also big news for everybody still playing who’s on or around the number, like McIlroy (1 over) or Lowry (2 over ) or Schauffele (3 over).
STREAKS IN JEOPARDY
…or already over. Check out this graphic from ESPN’s broadcast:
Hideki Matsuyama is in at 3 over par, which all but guarantees his streak is over. Ditto for Reed, who’s in at 4 over par. Cantlay is 4 over through 8, which means his streak is in jeopardy. And Xander is 3 over after an impressive par save at No. 7; he got up and down from distance after dumping his second into the water.
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