By Andrew Both
KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. (Reuters) – Three of the four top-ranked players in the world missed the cut at PGA Championship on Friday as Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele had their chances of major silverware blown away at windy Kiawah Island.
They all missed the cut by one lousy shot at six-over-par 150 as the championship lost some of its heavy hitters, notwithstanding a star-studded leaderboard headed by Phil Mickelson and Louis Oosthuizen.
After missing the cut as defending champion at the Masters last month, Johnson becomes the first world number one to exit early from two consecutive majors since Greg Norman in 1997.
Johnson’s mediocre performance was not a complete surprise. He had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in 2019 and the joint has been troubling him recently, prompting him to pull out of last week’s PGA Tour event.
Thomas, however, has been in good form lately, including a win at the prestigious Players Championship in March.
And Schauffele just last month threatened to win the Masters before a double-bogey at the 16th, eventually finishing equal third.
Other big names to miss the cut included Masters champions Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel.
Another to bow out early was world number 66 Cameron Tringale, who was only two shots from the lead early in his round.
But that was before he dropped 12 shots in a four-hole stretch on the difficult into-the-wind closing holes.
He triple-bogeyed the par-three 14th and two holes later at the long par-five put two balls into the water for a quintuple bogey.
Another water ball at the par-three 17th led to a quadruple bogey.
Tringale played quite well apart from that stretch, but the damage had been done. He shot 82.
(Reporting by Andrew Both; Editing by Stephen Coates)
