Justin Thomas thinks the PGA Tour’s raucous crowds are getting out of hand.
A day after Rory McIlroy said he needed “a couple Advil” to recover from playing with such a large group of unruly fans (McIlroy and Thomas were paired with Tiger Woods for the first two rounds), Thomas echoed the Irishman’s sentiments.
“It was pretty wild this first couple days. It was all right for a little bit today, but there at the end it got a little out of hand,” Thomas said at his post-round press conference. “I guess it’s a part of it now, unfortunately. I wish it wasn’t. I wish people didn’t think it was so amusing to yell and all that stuff while we’re trying to hit shots and play.”
Thomas begins the final round of the Genesis Open four shots back of Bubba Watson, and he’ll be expecting more distractions during the final round. One particularly problematic trend, according to Thomas, is fans yelling as players make contact with the ball – or even beforehand.
“I don’t know – I guess they just think it’s funny,” Thomas said. “It might be funny to them, and obviously people think of it differently and I could just be overreacting. But when people are now starting to time it wrong and get in people’s swings, is just completely unacceptable really.
“We’re out here playing for a lot of money, a lot of points, and a lot of things can happen. And you would just hate to have, hate to see in the future something happen down the line because of something like that.”
Thomas tees off at 9:49 a.m. local time Sunday alongside Derek Fathauer and Aaron Baddeley.
