This year marked Tiger Woods’ 26th Masters appearance — and a chance at snagging an additional piece of history.
Last year, Woods added another line to his Masters legacy when he tied Gary Player and Fred Couples for most consecutive tournament cuts made, with 23. This year, Woods, 48, had an opportunity to make the record his own.
Prior to the start of this year’s Masters, Woods hadn’t played a competitive round since withdrawing from the second round of February’s Genesis Invitational, citing illness. Given his lack of reps, his prospects at Augusta National were hard to predict. And they were further complicated by a weather delay that prevented Woods from completing his first round on Thursday, meaning he would have to finish his remaining holes on Friday morning, and then play a full second round with a break of less than an hour in between.
But despite bogeying Nos. 14 and 18 on Friday morning, Woods managed to post an opening round of one-over-par 73 to keep himself in the mix. At the Masters, the top 50 players, plus ties, at the 36-hole mark are eligible to continue playing over the weekend.
An up-and-down front nine in his second round featured four birdies and four bogeys. Woods remained at one over par with nine holes remaining — good enough for T35 at the time, with the cut hovering at three over par, giving him a two-shot cushion.
Tiger Woods had 52 minutes between Masters rounds. Here’s everything he did
Still, the back nine at Augusta National is famously full of risk-reward holes — and danger abounds. (Look no further than Jordan Spieth’s quadruple-bogey disaster at the par-5 15th, which traditionally plays as one of the course’s easier holes.) Woods made it through treacherous Amen Corner (holes 11-13) in even par, draining a clutch 6-footer at 11, executing a tidy up-and-down from off the green on 12, and two-putting his way to a regulation par on 13.
With five holes remaining, Woods had moved into T27, with the projected cut stretching to four over. Then, a bogey on 14 pushed Tiger to two over and T38 with four holes remaining — just two shots clear of the projected cut.
But Woods found the green in two on the par-5 15th to post a bounce-back birdie, bringing him back to one over for the tournament and three shots clear of the cut.
Pars on 16 and 17 — the latter of which included another clutch 6-footer — were followed by another tester on 18. Woods missed the green on his approach, but hit a masterful chip to a few feet from the hole, which he drained as the wind howled around him.
Woods finished the day at one over overall, T27 at the time his round ended — not only well within the cut line, but within shouting distance of the leaders, too.
With 36 holes remaining at the 2024 Masters, perhaps Woods’ Augusta National record book isn’t yet complete.
