3 excruciating missed cuts (and 3 inspiring makes!)

OAKMONT, Pa. — As I wandered Oakmont’s hallowed, humid grounds for most of Friday afternoon and into the evening, I kept finding different versions of the same feeling: misery.

At the U.S. Open, the brutality is the point, or at least part of it. There’s beauty in the grind, in taking on an exacting mental and physical survival test, a tournament that’s always trying to push the line between demanding conditions and just pure misery.

The second round was slow. Really slow. Six-hour round slow. It was difficult. Really difficult. Four-over-par-beat-the-field difficult. It was the best weather day of the week, but that still meant hot and muggy (which drained the life from some tired pros) and eventually pouring rain (which was much worse). Everywhere I turned, pros were hacking out of long rough, standing sideways at the edges of bunkers, chopping from brutal lies and watching golf balls roll and roll and roll in the wrong direction. And then they were waiting for the group in front of them, five and 10 and 15 minutes at a time, plenty of opportunity to feel the effects of that pain. One guy shot 35 over par. Sixty-six players shot double digits over par. As for the six stories of triumph and heartbreak below? They told the story of the day.

MADE CUT: Grand-Slammer Rory McIlroy

At No. 12, Rory McIlroy needed a birdie and was in position to procure one. Two doubles in his first three holes meant the Masters champ was eight over par, one shot outside the projected cut line, but after a 332-yard drive he had just a long iron into a reachable par-5. This seemed like his chance to shine. Still, there was evidence around him that none of this was easy — his good mate and playing partner Shane Lowry was in the midst of a 79-78 showing, while their third Justin Rose had just taken four shots to advance 60 yards and was cruising towards 14 over par. Perhaps the bad vibes were contagious; McIlroy waited and waited and finally hit a grisly approach that dove left off the club and settled in some nasty rough 70 yards from the hole. He tomahawked his club some 30 yards forward in disgust; his birdie chance had just become another scramble for par.

But that was hardly the end of the story. McIlroy earned good birdie looks at the par-3 13th (11 feet, just missed) and the par-4 14th (six feet, just missed) before canning a 20-footer at No. 15, walking it in and injecting some life into his game.

The most viral moment from McIlroy’s round came at the drivable par-4 17th. All we could see from up by the green was that he’d flared his tee shot just right of his target and slammed his club in frustration; it was only later that we saw the video showing he’d pulverized a tee marker with his 3-wood. It was classic Rory that he still almost made birdie and then did make birdie at 18, nuking his tee shot 373 yards down the middle, spinning a wedge inside five feet and pouring the putt in the middle.

In all it felt like a round emblematic of the recent Rory McIlroy experience — surprising mistakes, reminders of brilliance, frustration near the surface and some valiant fight to keep himself in it. McIlroy skipped media post-round, as he had at the PGA Championship, where he fought to make the cut and finished T47. He’s T45 at the U.S. Open’s halfway mark. Time to see if he can improve on that.

MISSED IT: Defending champ Bryson DeChambeau

We’ve grown accustomed to the idea that certain players will be main characters in most if not all of these majors. It feels like at least two or three of Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy get in the mix every tournament, so it was unsettling to see all four of them flirt with missed cuts at various points throughout their second rounds.

Scheffler fought his way to four over, while McIlroy and Schauffele settled at six. But DeChambeau couldn’t slow the bogeys — he hit just five fairways and seven greens in regulation, which left him scrambling. He was five over par with eight holes to play but bogeyed 3, doubled 5 and bogeyed 6 and 7 to seal his fate.

Watching snippets of each of their rounds made me wonder if Oakmont’s setup has introduced more randomness than other majors, if courses with shorter rough and more recovery options better identify the best player. But also — everybody is playing this course, and a whole bunch of golfers are doing it better than they are.

DeChambeau is clearly among the game’s elite; even with this MC he has five top-sixes at majors since the beginning of 2024. But that was no comfort as he walked out of Oakmont’s clubhouse post-round and headed back to its driving range. Too late for this week, never too early for the next one.

MADE CUT: First-timer James Nicholas

Thursday was a dream for James Nicholas. The Korn Ferry Tour pro was making his major debut and had made Oakmont look fairly pedestrian; he made 15 pars, two birdies and just a single bogey to finish Day 1 inside the top 10, with family and friends lining the ropes as he finished.

Friday began as a nightmare. Double at 1. Bogey at 2. A two-chip, three-putt quadruple-bogey 8 at No. 5. Add in bogeys at 7-8-9 and Nicholas had suddenly gone from inside the top 10 to well outside the cut line with a 10-over-par front-nine 45.

But did something special the rest of the way. In the U.S. Open it’s famously tough to stop the bleeding, but Nicholas pitched it to three feet at the par-5 12th for a short birdie. He flagged his approach at the par-3 13th for another birdie. When he birdied 14, too, the comeback was on.

At Oakmont, though, nothing’s easy and the course doesn’t care how hard you’ve worked to get there. At 18, Nicholas hit a nifty bunker shot to nine feet but missed a par putt that would have gotten him in the house at 6 over par and guaranteed him a weekend tee time; he looked despondent after tapping in for bogey. But just a few hours later it became clear that the 7 over he’d signed for was good enough, too — and that his 45-33 earned him a made cut.

MISSED CUT: Last-timer Phil Mickelson?

Thunder boomed and lightning flashed as Phil Mickelson arrived at the 18th green on Friday evening, with one momentous putt left to hit. That’s actually not a metaphor — that’s literally what happened. There was plenty of attention on Mickelson at this tournament because it’s his last exempt start in an event where he’s finished runner up six times. And he’d been battling hard and playing well for 32 holes before a double at No. 15 and another at the drivable par-4 17th, where he’d gone from six over par (one shot inside the cut line) to eight over (one shot outside) after two chips and three putts. But he’d nearly landed his approach in the hole at No. 18, and now he faced a 15-footer as the weather turned worse.

There was an odd scene on the green — Mickelson’s playing partner Brian Harman, who was right on the cut line, seemed unsure whether or not to continue and so took several minutes studying his 40-footer. (He needed two putts to make the weekend.) Eventually Harman said something to Mickelson about weather or conditions — we were wondering if they were about to blow the horn — but Mickelson replied that he intended to finish, for better or worse.

Harman eventually rapped his putt down the hill to three feet. Mickelson’s effort went wanting, breaking across the cup and leaving a tap-in that may prove to be his final stroke at a U.S. Open. If it is, consider it a fitting finish — heroics, double bogeys, thunder, lightning and one shot too many. Maybe it was a metaphor after all.

MADE IT: Clutch-putter Philip Barbaree Jr.

Made cuts are all about context, and the context around Philip Barbaree Jr.’s weekend tee time makes it that much sweeter.

Big-picture, there’s the fact that the Americas Tour pro is 0-for-7 lifetime in made cuts at the Korn Ferry Tour level or higher. There’s the fact that, as mini-tour whisperer Monday Q Info points out, a made cut at the U.S. Open allows him to skip the first stage of Q-School. There’s the fact that he will get a chunk of this weekend’s $21.5 million purse.

Small-picture, there’s the fact that Barbaree had one of the final tee times on Friday. That means he played one of the slowest, longest and, eventually, wettest rounds. It was getting dark and pouring rain when play was called as he faced a 30-foot par putt on Friday night. It was still raining when he played his final hole on Saturday morning, and when he faced a nervy five-footer with very clear stakes: Make it you’re in, miss it, you’re headed home.

Two more days for Philip.

MISSED CUT: Wet, upset Thorbjorn Oleson

If there was a poster boy for the soggy injustice of a late Friday tee time it was Thorbjorn Olesen, who was six over par as he played his tee shot at No. 9 in the pouring rain and impending darkness. It went wayward, bouncing into the long, thick, impossible grass of the ditch left of the fairway. He looked especially miserable as he spent several minutes trudging through the knee-deep grasses looking for a ball he was certain to have to drop anyway; I wondered if he was killing time, hoping they’d blow the horn. But mercy didn’t come.

Eventually Olesen took a drop and was left with 226 yards up the hill through the rain, needing bogey to make the weekend, to keep himself in the tournament, to earn valuable points as he chases a return to the European Ryder Cup team, along with everything else. He hit that approach into the right bunker, short-sided to a front right pin. Now needing an up-and-down to secure his precious bogey, Olesen’s shot looked good in the air but landed one foot short of where it needed to, catching in the rough and screeching to a halt.

Double bogey. Missed cut. Just seconds after his final putt fell, the horn blew, suspending misery until the morning — too late for Thorbjorn.

There was beauty in the battle, his and others, fighting for six hours through the rough and tough and rain in pursuit of something special. It probably didn’t feel that way.

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