Tiger Woods sneaks past Memorial cut with clutch putt on 18th green

Tiger Woods has found some consistency in 2015. For the second straight tournament, he needed a putt on his final hole Friday afternoon to make the cut. That’s about where we are right now with the 172nd-ranked player in the world.

For much of the round, it appeared Tiger would sail into the weekend comfortably. That seemed unlikely on Thursday morning, when Woods could not hit a fairway, yanking drives into the trees left and blocking them off the property to the right. There was no rhythm, and everything was a grind. But he finished his opening round with a 3-under 33 second nine, and that rolled over to Friday.

Woods started his second round with birdies on three of his first four holes, looking nothing like the wild and inconsistent mess from Thursday. The back nine, however, became much more of a slog. With players ahead of him running out to double-digit under-par on a soft and easier-than-normal Muirfield Village, it appeared he would need to be in the red just to make the cut. A smooth birdie putt from the fringe at the 14th hole seemed to lock that up, pushing him to 3-under for the tournament and 4-under for the round. It was a perfect play that prompted that Tiger putter raise from past days when he wasn’t making cuts by the skin of his teeth.

That would be it for birdies, however, and Woods nearly finished bogey-bogey-bogey to miss the weekend.

Tiger went to the 18th tee needing a par on a hole that’s punished him in the past. On Thursday, he bombed one off the property and made a double-bogey. Instead of the right miss, which he blocked on both tee shots in the first round, Tiger pulled this drive left into an awful lie that forced him to punch out some 40 yards short of the green. Par was a dicey proposition, put Tiger pulled off the up-and-down to get 36 more holes at Muirfield Village.

As inconsistent and shaky as his game is right now, converting that par was an impressive end in a fairly pressurized situation, especially after he just watched playing partner Jason Day miss a comparable putt to fall below the cut line.

When you’re making cuts with clutch putts on the final hole Friday, it means you’re probably in a pretty big hole heading to the weekend. Tiger thought he had a realistic chance at the Players last month, but this week, he’ll have another early-morning Saturday tee time and start 11 shots off the pace. Friday’s round was a big improvement over his opening 18, and he looked good for about 15 holes. But it’s still a constant grind, and the five-time Memorial winner isn’t going to contend on the weekend. At least he now gets two more rounds before the U.S. Open, which is an improvement from where he was at the start of this season and gives him the reps his game absolutely needs.