Your heart may have skipped a beat.
Justin Thomas’ beat a little faster.
Thomas was 50 feet from the 18th hole at Muirfield Village Golf Club last Sunday. Collin Morikawa, his opponent during the sudden-death playoff at the Workday Charity Open, was 24. Thomas needed to get it close to make it interesting. He needed to make it to make it exciting. Thomas needed to show some heart.
In. Thomas showed plenty.
Whoop showed exactly how much. In an Instagram video, the company that makes wearable technology that tracks training, recovery and sleep showed Thomas’ heart rate during his putt.
“There was no shortage of excitement at this weekend’s Workday Charity Open, JT,” Whoop wrote under the video. “Time to recover.”
Thomas’ heart was beating at 112 beats per minute as he stood over the ball. It was beating at 119 bpm when he hit it. It was 130 when the ball was about 10 feet away.
When the ball tricked in – and Thomas yelled, “Come on!” in celebration – his heart rate was at 146 bpm. It had increased by 34 bpm over the ball’s 9.5-second journey.
“Well, you’re never expecting to make a 50-footer, but I read it well,” Thomas said. “It’s a pretty – it’s a simple read in terms of where it’s going. It’s just the hardest part is getting the speed I felt like. It’s very fast, and it breaks hard to the right. It’s kind of one of those once it starts going down the hill, you have an idea if it looks good or not, and it did. But that speed on that putt was just perfect.
“I tried to – obviously it was exciting when I made it, but I knew that Collin had a good look and a pretty straight putt going down that hill that he kind of saw from mine, and he’s obviously a great putter. Tried not to get too wrapped up in it.”
Morikawa ripped Thomas’ heart out a few seconds later.
He made his putt, too.
On the second playoff hole, also on 18, they matched each other’s scores again. On the third playoff hole, on 10, Morikawa won.
“I mean, I figured I just had to make it,” Morikawa said of his putt after Thomas’ 50-footer. “Obviously I wanted to put in really good speed, but it didn’t really change much, other than if I missed, we’re done. It’s all over. I had my caddie come in, read the putt with me. We agreed on a line, hit it perfect exactly how we wanted, and really helped that J.T. had that putt about halfway in between during regulation. So I kind of knew what it did at the end. So as long as I got my line started on there, we had a good shot at making it.”