Willett, Watson miss Masters cut

A Masters Tournament streak held for 13 years until Danny Willett came up just short of the weekend this year.

Willett shot 7-over-par 151 over the first two rounds to miss the 6-over cut by one stroke. He became the first defending Masters champion to miss the weekend since Mike Weir in 2004.

“It’s an amazing place to be, especially with the weather that’s coming in,” Willett said. “It really would be nice to make it into the weekend. Like I said, we had that in our own arms, but we let it slip.”

Willett couldn’t recover from a quadruple-bogey 8 on No. 1. He shot 6-over-par 78 in the second round Friday.

The cut line was still uncertain at the time, but he missed a four-foot par putt on 18 that would’ve earned him two more rounds.

“It’s been a tricky 12 months; we haven’t played great golf,” he said. “But, by the same token, if you look at the career that we’ve had, we’ve not really had a slump in form in two years. We’ve had two fabulous years.”

Bubba Watson’s 78 on Friday also doomed his chances for two more rounds. The two-time champion finished 8-over by logging 13 bogeys over the two rounds, including five bogeys in six holes to start his second round.

Watson’s streak of eight consecutive cuts made ended. It was the second-most starts without missing a cut among players in this year’s field, and it was the first missed cut of Watson’s Masters career.

Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, missed a second consecutive cut by finishing 7-over. An opening-round 77 proved too much for the 41-year-old to overcome.

Henrik Stenson missed his first cut since 2011 and finished outside the top 25 for the first time since 2012 by shooting 8-over 152. Patrick Reed also saw his week cut short by shooting 9-over to miss his second cut in four Masters appearances.

Alex Noren, ranked 10th in the world, missed the cut in his first Masters after carding 8-over.

Reach David Lee at (706) 823-3216 or david.lee@augustachronicle.com.