OTIS Golf

Projected cut lineBiltmore Championship Asheville

The Cliffs at Walnut Cove

Who plays the weekend. Before the tournament that is a probability per player, because no score exists yet; once the leaderboard is live it is the score sitting on the boundary right now. Both are labelled for what they are, and neither is ever carried over from last week. Full scoring is on this week.

Data published 1 September 2026 · refreshes every 15 minutes during play.

What the projected cut line means

Most full-field PGA Tour events play 36 holes, cut the field to the low sixty-five and ties, and let only those players play the weekend. The cut line is the score that boundary lands on. This page answers it two ways, because before anybody tees off there is no score to quote. Ahead of the tournament it gives each player's modelled chance of surviving the cut and marks where the sixty-fifth place falls in that order — the bubble, expressed as a probability rather than as a number of strokes. Once scoring is under way it also reads the current standings and reports the score sitting on the boundary right now. Both are shown for what they are: a projection is not a result, and a line read mid-round moves with every group still on the course.

How the projection is worked out

The pre-tournament figure comes from the same simulation that produces the win probabilities. Each player is played through four rounds many thousands of times from their strokes-gained rating and its spread, a cut is applied to the 36-hole totals at the sixty-five mark, and a player's make-cut chance is the share of those runs they survived. Two simplifications are worth stating plainly: the simulated cut takes exactly sixty-five players and does not model ties, and it does not know about events that use a different rule or no cut at all. The live figure involves no model whatsoever — it reads the current leaderboard, finds the score at the boundary position and counts everyone level with it or better. That is a description of the standings as they are, not a forecast of where they will finish.

What the projection does not tell you

It does not tell you where the cut will fall in strokes before the tournament starts, and it deliberately does not pretend to. A cut line in strokes depends on how the course plays in conditions nobody has seen yet: one windy afternoon moves it two shots, and a soft morning moves it back. What the model can honestly say in advance is which players are likely to be on the right side of it, and it says that as a probability. The live line has the opposite limitation — it is exact but temporary, because half the field may still be playing. Not every event has a cut at all; the smaller invitational and season-ending fields play all four rounds, and in those weeks this page has no line to give and says so.

Common questions

What is the cut in a PGA Tour event?

In a standard full-field event the field plays 36 holes, and only the low 65 players and anyone tied with 65th place go on to play the weekend. Everyone else misses the cut and is finished for the week. Smaller-field events often have no cut at all.

How many players make the cut?

Sixty-five, plus everyone tied on that score — so the real number is usually a little higher than 65, and occasionally much higher when a lot of players finish level. The model's simulated cut takes exactly 65 and does not attempt to model those ties.

When is the cut line decided?

At the end of the second round. Until the last group has finished 36 holes the line is provisional, which is why a figure read off the leaderboard mid-round is a description of the standings at that moment rather than a settled result.

How accurate is a projected cut line?

A pre-tournament projection cannot be precise in strokes, because scoring depends on conditions nobody has seen yet. That is why this page publishes make-cut probabilities before play and switches to reading the actual standings once there are scores, rather than quoting a strokes figure it cannot stand behind.

Sourcing is set out on the methodology page; every stat name is defined in the glossary.