By Daniel Rapaport
AUGUSTA, Ga. — It’s perhaps the most anxious position for a professional golfer: Sweating out the cut line at a major championship. Pros take pride in making the cut at any tournament, but missing the weekend at the Masters hurts that much more. And because of a slight rule change and an untimely thunderstorm, five players are going to be stuck in purgatory for a whole lot longer than they’d like.

Prior to this year, a player was guaranteed to make the weekend at the Masters so long as they were inside the top 50 (and ties) or within 10 shots of the lead. That rule changed this year so only the top 50 and ties will make the cut. The 10-shot rule is no more.

And as it stands after Friday’s second round was stopped due to darkness, there are 11 players currently tied for 50th place at even par. In normal years, they’d be good to make the weekend so long as the 36-hole lead is 10 under or higher. But with no 10-shot rule, they are firmly in danger of missing the weekend. Six of those 11 still have at least eight holes of their second rounds, so they control their own destiny when play resumes at 7:30 a.m. Saturday—make birdies and make the cut.

But for the five guys who have already finished their second round—well, they’re in for one uncomfortable night.

The unlucky quintet: Collin Morikawa, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Zach Johnson, Sung Kang and Nick Taylor. They will not find out until around 9:30 a.m. whether their two-day total of 144 was good enough for the weekend. If anyone just from even par to one under, the cutline also moves to one under and they’re all off for the weekend.

While they may never admit to wishing bogeys upon their peers—bad karma—they will privately be rooting against the five guys at even par with holes to play, as well as the five guys at one over and the two guys at one under who can all impact the cutline.

Of course, this is the definition of a first-world problem. There are much, much worse situations to be in than hoping for a chance to make tens of thousands of dollars playing golf.

But as far as major championship golf goes, this is about as stressful as it gets.

More from Friday at the 2020 Masters
• Tiger Woods loses momentum, but holds on to his green jacket chances
• Abraham Ancer continues to prove that he’s a big-time player, he’s just missing one thing
• Bryson DeChambeau in danger of missing cut after disastrous third hole
• Jon Rahm hilariously (perhaps inadvertently) burns Bryson DeChambeau with two simple words
• Rory McIlroy had about as terrible a Friday morning as you could imagine at Augusta National
• Why these five guys are going to have an especially restless Friday night in Augusta
• Brooks Koepka’s play has been ‘super sloppy’ and he can still win
• Alert! Augusta National legend Jeff Knox has been called into action earlier than usual this week!
• Justin Thomas broke his odd Masters curse
• Bernhard Langer keeps building on the sneakiest good record in Masters history
• Bryson DeChambeau lost his ball in Augusta’s second cut, which we all figured was impossible
• Why you shouldn’t be surprised about Rory McIlroy’s up-and-down start at Augusta
• What you think about Dustin Johnson says more about you than him
• Who needs a driver at Augusta? Danny Willett cracks his, uses 3-wood off tee and shoots career low
• How the 36-hole cut is determined at Augusta National
• Bernhard Langer has become the oldest golfer to make the cut in the Masters

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Still, the crowd atmosphere—or lack thereof—at Colonial Country Club made for some interesting occurrences. But none more so than when Sung Kang made a hole-in-one during Thursday’s first round. The winner of last year’s AT&T Byron Nelson knocked one in from 162 yards out on the 13th hole, but didn’t celebrate. Why? Because he had no clue he had made a hole-in-one.

RELATED: Takeaways from the 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge

During Sunday’s coverage of the event, CBS put together this highlight package showing Kang take his putter and walk to the green before being told by someone that his golf ball was in the hole. Not surprisingly, it didn’t damper his reaction. Check it out:

With no fans on site @CSChallengeFW, Sung Kang had no clue he ACED the 13th. ? pic.twitter.com/D2m9QyoKrS

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 15, 2020

Unfortunately for Kang, there weren’t too many other highlights as he missed the cut at Colonial. But he’ll always have one of the oddest—and quietest—aces in PGA Tour history.

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It’s an annual tradition at Golf World. Our “Newsmakers of the Year” package has helped cap the year in golf now for more than two decades. From our former print magazine to our current digital publication, readers have been treated to a thoughtful review of the previous 12 months, our writers returning to the players, events and moments that helped define our sport in hopes of offering a hearty encore to the season. During the next two weeks, we’ll continue the tradition by unveiling the top 25 Newsmakers of 2018—Nos. 25 to 11 from Dec. 3-7 and Nos. 10 to 1 from Dec. 10-14. There will be a few no brainers—spoiler alert: U.S. Open and PGA champion Brooks Koepka makes our list—but also some storylines that are less obvious but, we think, no less worthy of our collective appreciation. So come back each day to see who makes our list as we countdown to our No. 1 Newsmaker of 2018. —Ryan Herrington

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Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images

No. 20: Backstopping

Backstopping as a routine isn’t entirely new on the PGA Tour, but it became more out in the open in the fall of 2017. That’s when Justin Thomas confessed his right to play faster even if it means taking advantage of a ball near the hole and not waiting for it to be marked. The previously little-spoken occurrence gained more attention in June when Jimmy Walker found himself at the center of a firestorm after saying, “If you don’t like a guy you will mark anyway. If you like the guy you might leave it to help on a shot. Some guys don’t want to give help at all and rush to mark their ball. To each his own.” Fellow tour pros—Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Luke Donald among them—took issue (rightfully so) with Walker’s stance. The most notable examples of the practice took place at the 2017-’18 season opener when Tony Finau hit a greenside bunker shot from a plugged lie as playing partner Jason Kokrak didn’t mark his ball that was next to the hole. At this year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, there was a similar situation involving Thomas and Brian Harman. The latter led to Paul Azinger blasting the idea of helping a fellow competitor—and in turn hurting the rest of the field. There have been other occurrences as well. But given the genial relationships between many of today’s young players, and with no rule in place for something that is almost entirely intent-based, don’t expect this controversy to die down anytime soon. —Brian Wacker

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Montana Pritchard/The PGA of America via Getty Images

No. 21: Pete Bevacqua

A golf executive switching from one big organization to another doesn’t always register with the general public, but Pete Bevacqua’s impact on the game has been bigger than most. The PGA of America CEO announced in July he would be taking a new position as president of NBC Sports Group, but only after presiding over several bold moves during his PGA tenure. In moving the PGA Championship from August to May, Bevacqua was giving the so-called fourth major a chance at a new identity. He helped secure a lucrative future for the Ryder Cup by establishing a 15-year rights deal between the PGA and NBC Sports, and set in motion a lucrative deal to move the PGA of America headquarters from South Florida to Texas. All were efforts to distinguish the PGA of America from the PGA Tour, two easy-to-confuse golf bodies with distinct missions. Bevacqua didn’t see all of those efforts come to their finish—the first May PGA is not until 2019, and the move to Texas is pending local approval—but if there’s a reason NBC wanted the charismatic Bevacqua on its team, it’s because of a proven ability to get big ideas off the ground. —Sam Weinman

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No. 22: Tiger Woods biography

The ambitious biography, Tiger Woods, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, delivered its share of juicy nuggets regarding the 14-time major champion—notably about his infamous sex scandal, his father’s infidelities and the particulars behind his decision to turn professional. But really what set this 512-page tome apart from the countless other profiles of Woods is how it created a three-dimensional picture of Woods’ curious existence—how he became arguably the greatest golfer of all time, but also someone who felt increasingly isolated at the height of his stardom. Of course there were elements of the book that Woods’ camp didn’t like—they cited a few small factual errors. Yet the book’s impact wasn’t so much in what it said, but in convincingly explaining why Woods ended up the way he did. —Sam Weinman

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Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

No. 23: Shubhankar Sharma

Shubhankar Sharma’s first true introduction to golf fans on the world stage involved an actual—and awkward—introduction with one of his heroes back in March. Sharma, the surprising 36-hole leader at the WGC-Mexico Championship, approached Phil Mickelson on the practice green before the third round and was initially blown off by the five-time major champ, who mistook him for a member of the media. Mickelson wound up winning that week, but Sharma was the event’s breakout star with a performance that helped him earn a Masters invite two days later, making him just the fourth Indian golfer to tee it up at Augusta National. By year’s end, Sharma had collected the European Tour’s rookie-of-the-year award for a two-win campaign and finished 28th in the Race to Dubai. During the Open Championship, Sharma was surprisingly serenaded by a packed restaurant in Carnoustie for his 22nd birthday. Expect even more people to know who he is in 2019. —Alex Myers

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Getty Images

No. 24: Joel Dahmen/Sung Kang

Cheating is golf’s biggest taboo. It engenders a code of omerta, a cognizance of the scarlet letter that comes with the slightest assertion. It all made Joel Dahmen’s accusation that fellow competitor Sung Kang had knowingly broken the rules at the Quicken Loans National in July the talk of the tournament. Kang, Dahmen’s final-round playing partner, found a hazard at TPC Potomac’s 10th hole. Kang believed his ball passed over the stakes; Dahmen disputed the account, alleging Kang failed to cross the water. The argument continued so long that the group behind played through. Though a rules official eventually sided with Kang—whose T-3 finish earned an Open Championship invite—Dahmen, 31, remained steadfast, taking to Twitter to air his grievance: “Kang cheated. He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue. I lost.” Speaking at Carnoustie, Kang defended his actions. “I did the right thing,” the 31-year-old from South Korea insisted. One silver lining from the thorny incident: Dahmen, a career journeyman, seemed galvanized by the matter, reeling off four consecutive top-15s to keep his card for 2019. As did Kang. —Joel Beall

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Robert Laberge/Getty Images

No. 25: Bernhard Langer

Bernhard Langer, such is his consistency and resistance to aging, has turned the PGA Tour Champions season into an endless loop. For the fourth time in the last five years (and the fifth time overall), the World Golf Hall of Famer won the season-long Charles Schwab Cup and its $1 million bonus. His 14 top-10s led the tour for the seventh straight year. His earnings ($2,222,154) also led the tour for a seventh straight year. In those seven years, he’s led the tour in scoring average four times, and finished second three times, including this year. At 61, he is spotting the competition as many as 11 years in age, and is still dominating. His 38 career senior wins are seven shy of Hale Irwin’s all-time record, which seems distant, if it weren’t Langer doing the chasing. The one honour that Langer walked away with in 2018 for the first time? The PGA Tour’s Payne Stewart Award for quality of character and philanthropy. —John Strege

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By Joel Beall
Joel Dahmen’s profile received a heightened spotlight thanks to a weekend pairing with Tiger Woods. The 30-year-old journeyman grabbed attention for a different reason Sunday night.

In the final round of the Quicken Loans National, Dahmen was paired with Sung Kang. On the 10th hole at TPC Potomac, Kang’s second shot found the hazard. What followed was a bizarre, rarely-seen sequence on tour.

Kang believed his ball crossed the hazard, giving him a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. Dahmen disputed the account, asserting Kang’s ball failed to cross. The argument continued for so long that the group behind the duo, Ben Crane and Ryan Palmer, played through.

A rules official eventually sided with Kang, as the South Korean player was allowed to take a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. He would save par on the 10th and turned in a six-under 64, a score that translated to a T-3 finish that earned him an invite to the 2018 Open Championship.

Dahmen, however, continued to feel Kang’s drop was unjust, airing his grievances on Twitter Sunday night.

When asked why Palmer and Crane played through, Dahmen was blunt: “Kang cheated. He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue. I lost.”

This accusation quickly drew follow-up inquiries on the matter, and Dahmen was happy to oblige. “It was a typical dispute about where or if it crossed the hazard,” he said. “It clearly did not cross the hazard. We went back and forth for 25 minutes and he ended up dropping closer to the green.”

In spite of his protest, Dahmen said he had to sign the card. “At that point there is nothing I can do. If I don’t sign the card, a rules official will. I would just be delaying the inevitable.”

Dahmen’s caddy Geno Bonnalie backed up his player, and confirmed the argument on the 10th. “We didn’t agree on the spot where it ‘crossed,’” he said.

Though the Rules of Golf 26-1/15—Procedures for Relief from Lateral Water Hazard allow a player to drop from the last point where the ball rolled into the hazard, Dahmen maintains 26-1/21—Example of Serious Breach of Lateral Water Hazard Rule was at play. But unless video proves Kang wrong, the ruling from the official that allowed Kang to take his drop stands.

The PGA Tour and Dahmen’s representatives have not yet responded to comment on the accusation, while attempts to reach Kang proved unsuccessful. Dahmen, a cancer survivor, has made 14 cuts on tour this season.

UPDATE — 11:30 a.m.: Kang’s representatives have responded to Dahmen’s accusations through the PGA Tour’s communication staff:

“He is standing by the ruling that was made by PGA Tour Rules officials on Sunday and will have no further comment, other than he is looking forward to focusing on finishing out the season strong, and he is excited about the opportunity to play in the Open Championship again in a few weeks.”

11:50 a.m.: Golf Digest received the following statement from the PGA Tour:

“During Sunday’s final round of the 2018 Quicken Loans National, there was a discussion between fellow competitors Sung Kang and Joel Dahmen as to where Kang’s second shot crossed the margin of the lateral hazard at the par-5 10th hole before ultimately coming to rest in the hazard.

“A PGA Tour Rules Official handled the ruling, interviewing both players, caddies and marshals in the vicinity. The official then took Kang back to where he hit his second shot, and Kang confirmed his original belief that his shot had indeed crossed the margin of the hazard. With no clear evidence to prove otherwise, it was determined by the official that Kang could proceed with his fourth shot as intended, following a penalty stroke and subsequent drop. The PGA Tour will have no additional comment on this matter.”

This story will continue to be updated.

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