Tiger Woods tonight missed his first cut in the British Open, and only his second in 49 majors as a professional. The world number one crashed to a second-round 74 at Turnberry for a five-over-par total of 145, missing the cut by one despite birdies at the 16th and 17th.

His only other missed cut in the paid ranks came in the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot, just weeks after the death of his father, Earl.

After an opening 71, Woods birdied the par-five seventh today to get back to level par, but promptly bogeyed the next two holes.

The 33-year-old then ran up a double-bogey six on the 10th after losing a ball in heavy rough following a wild drive, and then dropped another shot on the 12th.

At that stage he was still in with a chance but carded another double bogey on the 13th after his chip failed to climb a slope to the green and rolled back towards his feet.

That made it seven shots gone in six holes and although he birdied the 16th and 17th, it was not enough to avoid an early exit from his 14th Open Championship.

“It’s disappointing, I was playing well coming in and today just didn’t play certain holes well,” said Woods, whose three wins this season have all come in his last appearance before a major — he finished sixth in both the US Masters and US Open.

“I was one under through seven holes and right there in the championship and had a few tough holes right in a row and couldn’t get it back.

“I hit a couple of bad shots, making bogey on 13 from 150 yards, it was problem after problem. I kept compounding my problems out there.

“I hit some bad tee shots, bad iron shots, didn’t get up and down, kept making mistake after mistake. I figured on 14 I probably had to birdie the last four. Obviously I didn’t do that, birdied two of the last four, and that’s not going to be enough.

“I just made mistakes and you can’t make mistakes and expect to make the cut or try and win the championship. You have to play clean rounds of golf and I didn’t.”