Michelle Wie misses the cut at Women’s British Open

Michelle Wie picked a lousy time to miss her first cut of the season.

Almost three weeks after winning the U.S. Women’s Open and a day after opening the Women’s British Open at 3-over 75, Wie struggled into the clubhouse and out of the tournament with a second-round 78.

With the projected cut line at 6-over, Wie, whose stellar year followed a miserable 2013 campaign, ended a streak of 22 straight starts without missing a cut. Her six bogeys and one double were too much for the two birdies (9-over) she posted Friday at Royal Birkdale, and she took to Twitter to express her sadness about not being around for the weekend.

Wie said after Thursday’s round that her tempo was off and it showed in the four-time LPGA Tour winner’s scuffling to find fairways.

“It was just off the tee, I just hit a couple just off line,” Wie, who hit seven of 14 fairways in her first round but missed them all on Friday, told reporters Thursday. “It’s not the widest of fairways out here and just a couple of bad bounces here and there, a couple of pot bunkers.”

With Mo Martin atop the leaderboard at 6-under heading into Saturday, two of the American Big Three (minus Wie) — world No. 1 Stacy Lewis (1-over) and Kraft Nabisco champion Lexi Thompson (5-over) — appeared to be safely inside the cut line and heading for the weekend.

As Tiger Woods, with his surgically repaired back and questionable swing, prepares to take the field at Hoylake next week for the men’s British Open, anyone else wondering if Wie’s MC is just the first of two in the U.K. for a duo of Stanford’s most illustrious alums?