“I’ve always loved this golf course, and I love playing this event,” Woods said before Thomas finished. “I hope I get a chance to play this weekend — I’m sorry, I got a chance to play on the weekend. I wish I get a chance to play two more rounds.”
Woods got his wish — and may have regretted it later when, sopping wet, he was 6 over through seven holes in his third round and play was called for the rest of Saturday. Meanwhile, Thomas had headed home after his bogey-bogey finish.
The second round had been suspended Friday when storms swept over the course, bringing down three large pine trees near the 16th green. Nobody was hurt when they fell, and workers had them cleared by the time play resumed Saturday.
Woods was 2 over with seven holes left when he returned to the course, and his birdie at the par-5 15th gave him some breathing room. But a wayward tee shot at the 17th forced Woods to lay up short of the bunker, leading to bogey, and a tee shot into the trees left of 18 forced him to hit his approach shot off the pine straw.
Woods came up short of the green, backed up his approach shot and two-putted for another bogey.
The weather wasn’t getting any better, though, and Thomas took the brunt of it. With rain driving so hard at the tough, uphill par-4 18th that he had to hit a fairway wood from 218 yards, Thomas went so far left he nearly landed among the patrons. His pitch shot checked up short, and another bogey resulted in a second-round 77 and a missed cut.
That allowed Thomas Pieters and Charl Schwartzel to join Woods in making the cut when it moved to 3 over.
That also meant 12 of the 18 players from the Saudi-back LIV Golf circuit made it. Among them was leader Brooks Koepka, who dodged the bad weather Friday and was at 12 under, two shots clear of Jon Rahm heading into the third round.
Kopeka made an early birdie and was 13 under when play was halted. Rahm dropped a shot and was at 9 under.
“It’s not going to be easy,” said Abraham Ancer, one of the LIV players that made the cut. “It’s going to be blowing. It’s going to be cold. It’s going to be raining. But at least everybody is going to be out there in the same stuff.”
Rory McIlroy won’t be there; he missed the cut after a second-round 77 on Friday left him 5 over for the championship. The runner-up a year ago will need to wait another year to take another crack at completing the career Grand Slam.
Others who missed the cut included Bryson DeChambeau, who shot back-to-back 74s to miss by one, and 2003 champ Mike Weir, who also finished at 4 over after he was forced to play his second round Friday with a marker.
One player who did make the cut: 63-year-old Fred Couples, who was 1 over when he finished his second round Saturday.
The 1992 champion trudged through a bogey-bogey finish, but he still became the oldest player to make the cut at Augusta National, beating the mark that Bernhard Langer set during the 2020 tournament by about 3 1/2 months.
“The last four years have been really mediocre golf. Maybe one year I was semi-close to making the cut, but that was my objective, and I did it,” Couples said. “It’s not like, ‘Ha, ha, ha. Now I can screw around and play 36 holes for fun.’ I’m going to try and compete. Play a good pairing with some younger guys and watch them play.”
Couples, whose 31 made cuts at the Masters trails only Jack Nicklaus’ record of 37, didn’t know he’d become the oldest player to make it. When told he had bettered Langer’s mark and the exact number of days, Couples replied: “Well, good.”
“Today is another day,” he said. “If it was Friday, it would have been 107.”
Koepa leads
Masters leader Brooks Koepka and world number three Jon Rahm of Spain got their third-round battle under way at a soggy Augusta National this morning with both making early birdies.
Koepka began the round with a two-stroke advantage over Rahm and both made birdies on the par-5 second hole in wet and windy conditions.
Koepka was in front on 13-under with Rahm at 11-under and no rival lower than 6-under in the early going.
Rahm, among 39 players who had to complete the storm-hit second round on Saturday morning, had been within a shot of Koepka before bogeying the final hole in round two.
Five-time Masters winner Tiger Woods managed to battle through the testing conditions to make the cut at three-over par 147 after shooting a one-over 73, but Rory McIlroy was among the big names to miss out on the final two rounds.
The second round completed and the cut made, the third round got under way at 11:30 a.m. with threesomes off split tees in a bid to complete the round before sunset.
Rahm had an eventful session back on course, making birdies on the par-3 12th and par-5 15th before, in driving rain, he bogeyed by three-putting the par-3 16th.
The Spaniard quickly made amends on the par-4 17th, where he rolled in a six-foot putt from the fringe for birdie.
Three-putting the final hole, however, left Rahm on 10-under 134 overall after rounds of 65 and 69 as he targets a second major win to follow his 2021 US Open triumph.
“I would have taken even par in the last four holes either way, and going through this afternoon, hopefully we play and I go with a lot of confidence,” Rahm said.
Conditions could be challenging on the rain-soaked course.
“We don’t know what kind of conditions we’re going to have. The weather’s supposed to get worse,” said Rahm.
“The greens have somehow maintained somewhat firm... but we don’t know what’s going to happen. Just a couple of greens that already had some water on them, and we’ll see but obviously if I play a little bit longer, might not be able to be as aggressive in some spots.”
Friday’s play had been cut short after stormy weather descended on Augusta National, with three of the course’s trademark tall pine trees blowing over.
Organizers said no spectators were injured by the falling trees and while it was cool with wind and rain on Saturday, there was no sign of thunder or lightning that would halt play.
Four-time major winner Koepka, who plays on the breakaway LIV Golf series, is the man to catch after an outstanding opening two rounds.
At 118th in the world, Koepka would be the lowest-ranked player to win the Masters since the rankings system was introduced in 1986.
The current holder of that distinction is Angel Cabrera of Argentina, who was ranked 69th when he won the green jacket in 2009.
- Tiger shares cut mark -
Woods, looking glum as he limped through the rain trying to avoid missing the cut for the first time as a professional, needed some help to get over the cut line.
The 15-time major winner looked to have blown his chance when he made bogey on each of the last two holes to fall back to three-over.
But his friend Justin Thomas, last year’s PGA Championship winner, then bogeyed the final two holes himself to move the cut line to three-over, saving Woods and ensuring he made the cut for a 23rd consecutive effort.
That matched the Masters record also shared by Gary Player and Fred Couples.
McIlroy shot a five over-par 77 with seven bogeys on Friday, leaving him 17 strokes behind pace-setter Koepka and condemned to his second missed Masters cut in three years.
