Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth have chance to win Valspar but big obstacles remain

Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth barely eeked into the weekend at the Valspar Championship but made their presence felt on Saturday at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort.

Spieth got things going early by making three birdies in his first four holes and went out in 2-under. Thomas went out in 1-under before hitting the jets with an eagle at the par-5 11th. Thomas followed with birdies on 12, 13 and 14 before a bogey at 15 briefly stalled his momentum. But the two-time major winner responded with a birdie at 16 to come in 30 and card a 6-under-par 65. He currently sits at 5-under.

Spieth, meanwhile, made three birdies and a bogey on the back nine to shoot 4-under on the day and is 3-under for the tournament.

Thomas and Spieth have played all three rounds together at the Valspar Championship this week. The last time they did that was at the 2018 Players Championship. The two close friends feed off each other’s energy during rounds like Saturday, and Thomas hopes a certain U.S. Ryder Cup captain was taking note as he and Spieth zoomed up the leaderboard.

“I think both of us would probably be lying if we said no,” Thomas said when asked if he and Spieth feel like they are playing head-to-head when paired together. “I mean, he got it going. Hopefully, Keegan was watching. I think we had a good best ball today. But, I mean, a little bit. We obviously enjoy each other’s company and have played and are comfortable playing with each other and played a lot of golf together. But definitely makes it a lot better when you’re out a little earlier than you would like on a Saturday morning, but you can kind of get the crowd into it. And we made a couple putts there on 4 and then he made a long one there on 7 and it seemed like that kind of got the crowd going and that’s fun for us.”

“At the end, I wanted to get to where I was tied with him so we could just play again tomorrow,” Spieth said. “But we always want to beat each other when we’re playing with each other, and that pushes us to play better. But the last couple times, he’s gotten the better of me, so … and he was going to be hard to beat at 6-under today.”

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Spieth struggled with an uncooperative putter during the middle of the round before draining a 21-foot birdie on 17. Now in his sixth event back following offseason wrist surgery, Spieth feels like he’s finally rounding into form with the Masters less than three weeks away.

“So it was nice to see one go in on 17, and I feel good with the putter in my hands,” Spieth said. “I just would like to be a little more fluid on some of the shorter ones and I feel like I’ve created enough opportunities tee to green, big improvements from last week in approach play. It just shows that this is really where I’m at, and last week was kind of a fluke on that golf course. So I feel really good about where the game’s at, I feel like I’m playing better than I’m scoring this week and that’s a good thing, especially if you’re not winning.”

Thomas, meanwhile, is fresh off an up-and-down week at the Players Championship that saw him tie the TPC Sawgrass course record while finishing in a tie for 33rd. He has three top 10s in seven starts this season and knows that as long as he keeps knocking on the door, he’ll eventually kick it down and grab a title.

“Whether I’m one back, three back, six back, whatever it is, I’m excited to go out and just try to make as many birdies as I can tomorrow and see where it puts us,” Thomas said.

Thomas hasn’t won since the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills. Spieth’s last win came at the 2022 RBC Heritage. The windy conditions at Innisbrook allowed them to make the cut at 1-over par and a Moving Day surge now has them in position to make a realistic Sunday run.

Thomas will start the day two shots back of 54-hole leaders Viktor Hovland, Jacob Bridgeman and Nico Echavarria. It will take something a little more special for Spieth to get it done Sunday, but Thomas thinks his friend is among the many who could win Sunday.

“The course is getting, it’s firming up a little bit,” Thomas said. “I’m excited to see how it’s going to play tomorrow. It’s going to be a true great test and a lot of people are probably going to have a chance.”

They’ll not only have to track down Hovland, who appears to be starting to come out of his funk after losing his swing, but will also need to tame a tough track while making sure the scar tissue that’s built up from almost three years of winless golf doesn’t prove too much to overcome.

“I’m doing a really good job of battling it,” Spieth said last week at TPC Sawgrass about his pursuit to find the Spieth of old with a now-healthy wrist. “I had to kind of rebuild stuff from a few months of nothing, and it wasn’t like I was coming back to something that was already great right before. I was in some really bad habits for a year and a half.”

Spieth and Thomas won’t be paired together Sunday at the Copperhead Course, but both will look to put the pedal down and finally end a drought that has gone on far longer than anyone expected.

Even if their pursuit of a streak-snapping win is unsuccessful, two of America’s best golfers feel like they are finding their game and that a trip to the winner’s circle — and Bethpage in September — is on the horizon.