Mike Weir can no longer call his own shots.

Following his unseemly 36-hole total of 22 over par to miss the cut at last week’s Honda Classic, the lefty from Brights Grove, Ont., has lost his fully exempt status on the PGA Tour for the first time since the 1998 season.

It doesn’t mean the grind of qualifying school is necessarily in his future. But falling out of the top 125 on the Tour’s money list does mean Weir’s schedule is not solely up to him, something unfathomable for a guy who was once ranked No. 3 in the world and is 12th all-time in career earnings.

To appreciate how Weir’s career trajectory has altered, it’s necessary to look no further than this week. While the planet’s top 50 players will be among the 69-man field for the World Golf Championships at the TPC Blue Monster at Doral, he’ll be in the Puerto Rico Open, a second-tier PGA Tour event.

Is all this career-ending? No. At least, not yet. Weir’s status in the top 150 of the money list from 2010 means he’ll be able to get into a dozen more events this year on top of the five he’s already played coming off an elbow injury that forced him to miss the end of last season.

As the 2003 Masters champion, Weir also has a lifetime exemption at Augusta. And, as a member of the International Team at the 2009 Presidents Cup, he gets a free pass to five other events, including the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in two weeks and The Memorial, Jack Nicklaus’s annual tourney, which is being held in early June.

Throw in qualifying for the United States and British Opens and Weir is on pace to play in 25 PGA Tour events in 2011, a typical season for him.

But as the soon-to-be 41-year-old acknowledged on his blog Monday in thanking those who have continued to support him, these are unusual days.

“It means a lot to me to know that there are so many people who believe in me, even when times are tough,” read a posting from Weir on his website.

Last week’s 77-85 start at the Honda Classic in Florida came in the fifth and final tournament of Weir’s medical exemption to start the 2011 season. Coming off the injury, he needed to make $227,885 (all figures U.S.) to climb from 151st on the money list to 125th and keep his full status intact.

But in those five events, where Weir has three of his eight career PGA Tour victories, he missed four cuts and finished tied for 77th to pocket just $10,788. He’s 214th on the 2011 money list and has a world ranking of 235th.

Even if Weir cannot get his game together enough over the rest of 2011 to crack the top 125 and regain fully exempt status for 2012, he has other options. Based on his $26.8 million in career earnings, he can also use two exemptions — one for top 25, another for top 50 — for next year and 2013.

“He has earned the ability to have a full schedule based on what he’s done over the past decade,” Dave Haggith, one of Weir’s representatives at IMG Golf, said Monday. “For him, the focus is getting back to top form with his game and then everything else will take care of itself.”

Three weeks ago, after missing the cut at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he finished tied for eighth or better seven times between 2000 and 2009, Weir said he still had “some tournament rust clinging to me.” But, he added, he was pain free and “there were signs that my game is heading in the right direction.”

At 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds, Weir has never been a big or even accurate hitter, typically ranking around 100th in PGA Tour driving distance and accuracy. But his tee shots have been even more wayward this year while his usual saving grace, the short game, has also deserted him.

Not surprisingly, Weir’s statistics so far in 2011 are brutal.

But of particular note, his putting average is 152nd and putts per round 109th, compared with 42nd and third, respectively, last season and 11th and ninth in 2003, his best year. In scrambling, Weir is 155th in making par after missing the green in regulation, compared to 82nd last year and 13th in 2003.

Weir is certainly not the first top-ranked golfer to fall on hard times.

Tiger Woods’ struggles are well documented. David Duval, like Woods a former world No. 1, is off to a solid start in 2011 after using sponsors’ exemptions to get himself into the top 125 last season.

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Steve Stricker, who lost his PGA Tour card in 2004 and parlayed sponsors’ exemptions in 2006 to comeback player of the year honours, is world No. 9.

Following Pebble Beach, Weir posted on his blog that he was “not really worried” about falling outside the top 125 because he knows he’s still going to play a lot of golf over the rest of the 2011 season.

“Right now, I’m just trying to get back into the routine,” wrote Weir, who last won at the Fry’s Electronics Open late in the 2007 season. “I know it will take time but I’m also confident I’ll be back playing great golf soon.”