More than an hour from his Round 2 started Friday, Tiger Woods was facing this task at hand: He would tee off Friday flirting with the cut line at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black.
The top 70 plus ties advance to the weekend in Farmingdale, New York. Woods was tied for 48th at 2 over, a shot better than the projected cut line. He managed to save par on No. 1 but bogeyed the second hole to drop to 3 over.
At point early in Friday's round, the cut line had bounced to 3 over before wobbling back to plus 2 and then gone back to 3 over.
Woods teed off at 1:49 p.m. ET with overnight leader and defending champion Brooks Koepka, who shot a 7-under 63 on Thursday to put nine shots between himself and Woods, the 2019 Masters winner, and fellow playing partner Francesco Molinari, the reigning British Open winner.
Koepka kept pressing the advantage with birdies at 1 and 2 to move to 9 under, 12 shots clear of Woods.
One positive: Woods knows the score he needs to shoot by going off in one of the final groups of the day, with the projected 18-hole score needed almost certainly to be under par or close to it. Woods, at one point Thursday, was as much as 3 over but rallied to get to 1 under before stumbling at the end of his round to post the 2-over 72.
"I felt like it's not that hard to make bogeys out here," he said after Round 1, "but it's hard to make birdies."
There's predicted to be another factor in play when as his Friday wears on as the forecast calls for the wind to pick up a bit and there could be some showers. Woods, Koepka and Molinari, who also shot a 72 in Round 1, played in relatively benign conditions Thursday on the grueling Black Course.
"We'll see what the golf course offers up (Friday)," Woods said. "It changed quite a bit from when we played (Thursday) morning to (Thursday) afternoon. The greens got a lot faster."
That's not a particularly encouraging sign, since Woods frequently struggled with his putter in Round 1, including a pair of three-putts on his second nine.
A couple of interesting nuggets, via The Washington Post, regarding Woods, 43, and the cut in golf's biggest stroke-play events:
— During his peak era, Woods’ worst finish in a major tournament held immediately after one of his grand slam victories was a T-28 at the 2002 British Open, when his hopes of a calendar-year Grand Slam were drenched by a third-round 81 in the wind and rain at Muirfield.
— Woods missed one cut at a major — the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, also on Long Island — during his comeback year in 2018. After the first round at Shinnecock, he sat nine strokes off the lead, just as he does behind Koepka when they tee off Friday.
