Cut (golf)

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The term cut (from English "cut") has two meanings in golf :

  • Professional golf tournaments regularly have four rounds. After the first two rounds, a cut is made through the cut , which means that only the tournament participants with the better results (around half of the players) qualify for the two decisive finals. On the European Tour these are the first 65 plus ties, while on the PGA Tour the first 70 plus ties are allowed to continue playing. Example: At the British Masters in 2015, 12 players with even par shared 62nd to 73rd place. Together with the better placed, there were 73 players who qualified for the final round.
With two majors the cut is lower. At the Masters, for which hardly 100 players can qualify, it is 50, at the US Open it is 60. At the British Open and the PGA Championship, however, as in all tournaments on the American Tour, it is 70.
The number of players sharing 65th or 70th rank can be significant. To limit their number, the American system provides for a second cut after three rounds. It is used in most American professional tournaments when more than 78 players have made the first cut. In the table of results, the Americans use the abbreviation MDF for the additionally eliminated players , which means “Made cut, did not finish”. There is no second cut in any major.
The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is the only professional tournament where a cut is only made after three rounds. Before that, each participant plays one round each on the St. Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns golf courses.
Exceptions are also the final tournaments of the FedEx Cup and the Race to Dubai . In the penultimate tournament of the Fedex Cup, the BMW Championship , the best 70 players play for 30 final places for the Tour Championship . In both tournaments, the participants play over four rounds. The same applies to the Dubai World Championship , for which the 60 best players on the European Tour qualify at the end of the season.
  • The trajectory of a golf ball that has been cut is also known as a cut if it runs from left to right for right-handed players and from right to left for left-handed golfers.