HIGHS AND LOWS

TIGER WOODS

Never mind that the weekend was a horror show for him, the fact he made the cut for a 24th successive time was remarkable in his circumstances. It was also a record. The list of players to not make it to the final rounds included Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Brian Harman and Viktor Hovland, so to see Woods outperform the more physically able, especially in the winds of Friday, was a triumph of mind over matter.

LUDVIG ABERG

What an astonishing major debut. We have stopped applying limits to the potential of a lad who only turned professional 10 months ago, but to see him top the leaderboard on Saturday strengthened the assessment that this is a generational talent. Golf has a habit of providing stars that burn bright and brief, but there is no obvious weakness in his game or mindset.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU

Folk have always tended to snigger about golf’s mad scientist and even among his fellow pros he has had the feel of an outsider. But he is great to watch and fascinating to hear — that he was contending here with irons produced by a 3D printer and only approved for use at the start of the week was one dose of wackiness. Another was the sign of him carrying a sign post on his shoulder like Jesus with the cross — the picture of the week.

ZACH JOHNSON

Even the mildest of individuals can crack in this place and that is what happened to Johnson on Friday. He wears last year’s US Ryder Cup loss as captain heavily and faced a harsh reaction from elements of the galleries in the months since. When a few taunted him after he made a hash of the 12th in the second round, he was heard to say: ‘Oh f*** off’. That was actually quite understandable; his attempts to claim he was speaking to himself were a touch harder to buy.

VIKTOR HOVLAND

The list of great players without a major is a long one but Hovland is close to the top and this was a dire week for the world No 6. His second-round 81 gave him no chance of making the cut and his mood was best captured by him missing a tap-in on the fifth and hurling his ball into the water.

SLOW PLAY

There is no doubting the conditions were brutal on Friday and the pin positions on Saturday also justified some extended thinking time. But the second round saw rounds being completed in somewhere close to six hours. That is utter madness. Put them on the clock and speed it up.