Hideki Matsuyama’s PGA Championship was surely over, but Matsuyama wasn’t done.
After shooting 2-over 73 on Friday at Quail Hollow Club, the encore to a similarly unimpressive first-round 72, Matsuyama grabbed his clubs and headed to the driving range, where he plopped a launch monitor down, took off his driver headcover and started whaling away. The mighty lashes nearly knocked Matsuyama off balance, and he smiled and laughed as frustration turned into twisted amusement with every ball launched off into the thick air.
Matsuyama entered this PGA with the world’s longest active cuts-made streak in majors, at 19 in a row. No more.
But Matsuyama wasn’t the only surprising early exit. The -3-over group that included Matsuyama also claimed Justin Thomas, the winner the last time the PGA came to Quail, in 2017; Ludvig Åberg, who has now missed the cut in half of his first six career major starts; and Keith Mitchell, a popular sleeper pick this week on a long, wet golf course that was supposed to reward everything Mitchell had been doing well.
Åberg’s MC was especially brutal, as he entered the Green Mile at 2 under before going bogey-double-double.
There was some hope that the cut would fall at 2 over. Unfortunately for Jordan Spieth, Shane Lowry, last week’s winner Sepp Straka and a few others, it did not. Instead, 1 over was the minimum required for weekend play. Fireballs teammates Sergio Garcia and David Puig each birdied Nos. 7 and 8 (their 16th and 17th holes) to make the cut on the number.
Patrick Reed and Patrick Cantlay, both tied with Scottie Scheffler and Paul Casey at 11 straight major cuts made entering the week, snapped their streaks. Reed shot 4 over, Cantlay 6 over.
Xander Schauffele now has the longest active streak with 13 straight cuts made at a major, followed by Scheffler at 12. Schauffele parred No. 18 to finish at 1 over after rounds of 72-71. Rory McIlroy, in Schauffele’s group, bogeyed each of his last two holes to also barely make the cut at 1 over.
This week marked a first for three-time PGA champion Brooks Koepka, who shot 75-76 to miss back-to-back major cuts for the first time in his career.
For a moment, it appeared as if Phil Mickelson was making a run at the weekend following an opening 79. He carded nine birdies in his first 11 holes to climb back to 5 over. But then Mickelson left three shots in a greenside bunker left of the 12th green and carded a quadruple-bogey 8. He made just five pars all day and shot 72, finishing his week at 9 over.
Justin Rose, coming off his playoff loss at the Masters, also missed at 9 over. Russell Henley, at 10 over, has now missed cuts in each of the first two majors.
Michael Block couldn’t repeat his Oak Hill magic from two years ago, shooting 75-82 and finishing middle of the pack among club pros, none of whom came close to making the weekend.
