LOS ANGELES — Justin Thomas said it’s a funny game.
He said it’s definitely the lowest he’s felt.
He said it sucks.
After shooting an 11-over 81 on Friday in second round of the U.S. Open, after ending up with a two-round total of 14-over, after finishing tied for 152nd out of 156 players, Thomas spoke on Friday at Los Angeles Country Club. Give him credit for that. Few maybe would have. But perhaps no one saw any of this coming.
Not from a two-time major champion and former world No. 1. Not from one of the game’s best ballstrikers. Sure, his game has been off some — he hasn’t won since last year’s PGA Championship — but this? The numbers were staggering.
On Friday, Thomas was 156th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee. He was 154th in SG: Tee to Green. He was 147th in SG: Approach the Green. He was 144th in SG: Putting. He made seven bogeys and two doubles. On the par-3 9th, he missed an 11-footer for birdie to the left, tapped it in, looked down and then looked out behind him. It was over. It marked his highest round in 30 major championship appearances.
But if you were stunned, just listen to Thomas.
“It’s weird because I felt like I was playing the best I’ve played in a really long time this week, end of last week,” Thomas told multiple outlets afterward. “It’s a funny game, man. You know, it can leave you speechless, good and bad, and right now, it’s unfortunately the bad. Once I’m able to kind of reflect and figure out what I can learn and get better from, you know, it’ll end up good.
“But it sucks right now.”
Thomas has been in a mild funk since his PGA win, with four top 10s in 21 starts. He’s fallen from fifth in the world rankings, to 16th. His Strokes Gained numbers this season on the PGA Tour are mostly fair — 15th in SG: Tee to Green; 54th in SG: Off the Tee; 36th in SG: Approach the Green; ninth in SG: Around the Green — but he’s a troubling 141st in SG: Putting.
Is Brooks Koepka rubbing off on Rory McIlroy? If so, that’s a good thing
“It’s definitely the lowest I’ve felt,” Thomas told multiple outlets. “It’s pretty humiliating and embarrassing shooting scores like that at a golf course I really, really liked. I thought it was set up really well. I worked so hard … and I was swinging great and I was really, really hitting a lot of good shots and I felt like I could 100 percent win this golf tournament, and I didn’t and obviously just played really poorly. Yeah, I don’t know — just gotta figure it out.”
Was there anything he could pinpoint?
“It’s all pretty sh***y when you shoot 14 over,” he said with a laugh.
Indeed. So he goes back to work. On Saturday morning, Thomas was tweeting about the event and LACC. The Open Championship, the year’s final major, is in five weeks.
“I’ll figure it out,” Thomas said. “I have another major left. If I go win the British Open, nobody even remembers that I’ve missed the cut by a zillion here, so I’ve just got to find a way to get better and learn from this, and if I can, I don’t have to look at this week as a total failure.”
