Justin Thomas says he wants to dare his amateur playing partners. Provocation, after all, can be a powerful drug.
But seemingly even then, he knows where they’ll end up.
Talking on a recently released video from Titleist — which you can watch in full by clicking here — Thomas had been hitting to a flag 103 yards away at the Titleist Performance Institute in California and reviewing his pre-shot process. Under neutral conditions, he said, he’d hit a lob wedge to that distance. But there was some wind. The pin was also six paces on, and nearby was a bunker. He’d need something more.
“I don’t know if I could get a lob wedge halfway there right now,” Thomas said on the video. “So yeah, this is very much a feel, kind of matching up everything because I don’t — if I hit something hard, like if I hit a gap wedge even, I could easily get gap wedge there, but it’s ripping back I think to where I can’t control it.
“So I would probably — I don’t like hitting wedges full; I’d much rather take the off speed. So I’d be even probably more prone to hit a 9-iron from here than a gap wedge. Whereas I’m sure a lot of guys would be the opposite.”
Here, one of the video’s two hosts, Andy Proudman of the Me and My Golf instruction team, picked up on that last sentence.
“Something that amateur golfers do all the time,” he said. “They hit 9-iron from 100 yards, don’t they?”
But Thomas didn’t mind. Just as there are no pictures on the scorecard, nor is there a box to record your club selection.
Said Proudman: “But I think what you said, I want to control the spin. You’re just looking to take the spin off so it doesn’t just climb up and end up short, but also when it lands, almost probably want to land this pretty dead, would you say? So it’s not ripping back at all.”
Said Thomas: “Exactly, yeah. It’d be one if wind is into like this, even taking this much off, I would allow for it to come back if it’s tilted toward me maybe one or two yards. So I got pitching wedge in my hands now. I mean, I can hit a couple different clubs, like I mentioned, but pitching wedge is probably most comfortable. I mean, 103 into this wind, if I had to guess, it’d be around a 120 shot.”
Thomas then hit. His ball finished about 20 feet to the right of the target, but pin high.
And safe. Thomas then thought of amateurs again.
On the video, the other co-host, Piers Ward said he thought players would hit their 100-yard club, hit it well — and end up in the sand.
“It’s infuriating to me to watch amateurs every week in pro-ams just not hit enough club,” Thomas said. “I’m like guys, this game is hard enough already. You’re hitting a club no matter how good you hit this, it’s not going to get there. So just hit more club. I dare you to hit it over a green.”
Said Proudman: “So we’re going to be saying this for the next 20 years.”
Said Ward: “Still the ego gets in the way.”
Said Thomas, speaking first as an amateur, then as himself: “‘I can’t hit a driver on a par-3.’
“I’ll be like, well, you can’t get there without.”
