Cal Golf: Max Homa & Collin Morikawa Qualify to Play the Weekend at the PGA
Tiger Woods made the cut at the 104th PGA Championship on Friday, and so did both former Cal players.
Max Homa is tied for 17th place headed to the weekend after a 1-under par 69 in the second round while Collin Morikawa eked his way into the third round after a second consecutive 72. His 4-over score made him part of a 16-player group that barely made the cut at Southern Hills Country Club in Tula, Oklahoma.
Woods, 15 months removed from a serious automobile accident, shot a second-round 69 and is tied for 53rd place at 3-over par.
Will Zalatoris has a one-stroke lead at 9 under after shooting a second-road 65. Mito Pereira fired a 64 and is second at 8 under.
Homa, 31, who has never finished higher than a tie for 40th place in a major, made just one bogey all day Friday and had back-to-back birdies on No. 12 and 13.
Ranked No. 28 in the world and coming off a victory two weeks ago , Homa played in the afternoon when windy conditions had settled a bit. He remains eight strokes off the pace at 1 under for two days.
Collin Morikawa
Photo by Orlando Ramirez, USA Today
Morikawa, 25, a two-time major winner who captured this event two years ago at San Francisco, played the morning session when conditions were ferocious, with gusts up to 35 mph. The world’s third-ranked player opened his day with eight straight pars, but wound up making just one birdie and three bogeys.
He had to wait for hours to find out whether he’d made the cut. Initially, officials projected that plus-3 would be the cut line. Ultimately, it became plus-4.
Morikawa enters the weekend trailing Zalatoris by 13 strokes.
Woods is only in marginally better position at plus-3, but making it to the weekend was a small victory for the 15-time major winner.
Playing on a sore right leg, Woods overcame a double-bogey 5 on the 11th hole to stay alive.
"You can't win the tournament if you miss the cut," Woods said. "I've won tournaments -- not major championships, but I've won tournaments on the cut number. There's a reason why you fight hard and you're able to give yourself a chance on the weekend.
“You just never know when you might get hot. This weekend I'm going to have to go low. It's going to be different. The wind is going to be coming out of the north. It's going to be cooler.”
Zalatoris admitted he “lucked out” by taking the course after the winds died down. But he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
"When I took the sole lead on 12, I told my caddie, 'Let's enjoy this,'" Zalatoris said. "In my first Masters, I was runner-up and I wanted to enjoy it. I'll take that same attitude.”
Justin Thomas shot a 67 for the second straight day and is third at minus-6, two strokes back of Pereira. Bubba Watson had nine birdies on the way to a 63 and is fourth at minus-5.
First-round leader Rory McIlroy is fifth at minus-4 after a 1-over 71.
World No. 2 Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka are tied for 41st place at 2 over,.
Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1 player, shot a 75 and missed the cut by two strokes at 6 over.
Cover photo of Max Homa by Orlando Ramirez, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo