Padraig Harrington will not be panicking yet, but surviving only one of his last five halfway cuts in America was definitely not what he had in mind after winning back-to-back majors last season.
The world number three's latest early exit came at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, where a two-over-par total of 142 was three too many to make it into the weekend.
Four missed cuts is as many as Tiger Woods has had in his entire professional career, but Harrington also sat out the finish of last week's AT&T Classic at Pebble Beach and following his US PGA triumph last August he crashed out of both The Barclays and Deutsche Bank events.
He began the year with a fifth-place finish in Abu Dhabi, but said there: ‘I don't think I've ever teed it up on a Thursday not been a little bit concerned about the cut.
‘You want to play four rounds and make sure you're in there competing. I've seen a lot of players start a run from scraping a cut and they relax on the weekend to shoot a good score, so every week to play four rounds is essential.’
A change of format might help at the moment and he will have that next week in the Accenture World Match Play in Arizona, where he is due to play American Pat Perez, winner of last month's Bob Hope Classic, in Wednesday's opening round.
There is also still nearly seven weeks to go to the start of The Masters at Augusta and his attempt to win a third successive major - this time, of course, with Woods in the field.
