Unkind cut
Masters 2022: Bryson DeChambeau, Jordan Spieth among highly ranked players to miss the weekend
Bryson DeChambeau looks on from the seventh green during the second round of the Masters.
Jamie Squire
AUGUSTA, Ga. — This time, there was no white-hot spotlight. No groans in living rooms around the world. In fact, if you weren’t among the few thousand fans at the elbow of Amen Corner on Friday, you probably didn’t see it. Jordan Spieth had more troubles with Augusta National’s shortest hole, and this time it cost him in a different way.
At the par-3 12th, the site of Spieth’s waterloo in the 2016 Masters when he made a quadruple-bogey 7 while leading on Sunday, Spieth again hit two balls into Rae’s Creek. The difference was that on this occasion, he fashioned an impressive fifth shot to four feet below the hole and made the putt.
Spieth wrote down a triple-bogey 6, and when the three-time major winner also double-bogeyed the 18th hole to shoot four-over 76, it meant the end of an impressive run in the Masters. Spieth hadn’t missed the cut in eight previous starts and has been a weekend contender more often than not. He won the green jacket in 2015 and had three other top-three finishes, including last year’s tie for third.
Jordan Spieth finished Friday with a four-over 76, missing the cut for the first time at the Masters.
Andrew Redington
But Spieth's game is still a work in progress, an every-week conundrum. This time, he missed the four-under 148 cut by two shots, though if there was any consolation, he was among a cadre of highly ranked players to pack up for an early flight home. Four of them, including Spieth, hailed from the winning American squad in the most recently played Ryder Cup. The others: Brooks Koepka (six over), Xander Schauffele (seven over) and Bryson DeChambeau (12 over). Joining them was 10-time PGA Tour winner Justin Rose (eight over), who missed only his second Masters cut in 17 starts.
It can be said that none in the group came into Augusta in sharp form. Schauffele, who contended deep into Sunday in two of the last three Masters, was the highest ranked at World No. 10, but he only has one top-10 finish this season. World No. 17 Koepka had missed five cuts and has one top-10 in stroke-play events, and this was his second straight missed weekend in Augusta after top-10s in 2019 and ’20.
Probably the least surprising to struggle was DeChambeau, who shot 80 on Friday. He has been battling injuries—the most concerning of which is a fractured hamate bone in his wrist. DeChambeau, who has played in only three tournaments this year, took six weeks off to try to heal and played three rounds in the WGC-Dell Match Play as a prep.
The situation is a stunning turnaround to just a couple of years ago, when the talk was how DeChambeau could possibly bring Augusta National to its knees with his power game. As it stands now, the golf course is the one that’s enduring. DeChambeau’s record at the Masters the last three years is worsening: T-34, T-46, MC.
Eight former Masters champions missed the cut: Zach Johnson (five over), Mike Weir (six over), Bernhard Langer (eight over), Fred Couples (10 over), Larry Mize (11 over), Vijay Singh (14 over), Sandy Lyle (14 over) and Jose Maria Olazabal (17 over).
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