Justin Thomas is back atop the leaderboard — but is it for real?

TROON, Scotland — All these lads are on journeys, ya know. Rory McIlroy is on a very public one, 10 years and counting. Bryson DeChambeau is on another, learning a thing or two about maturation. Bob MacIntyre’s journey of leaving Scotland and coming back — it climaxed last week. But how about the journey of Justin Thomas? 

Twelve months ago, the 31-year-old was busy taking 82 strokes around Royal Liverpool, a stretch of golf he called rock bottom. He was trying too hard, he said at the time, forced to hear questions about his health, about using his father as a coach, about his Ryder Cup status. The journey from there to Thursday, where he shot the best score of the morning — a three-under 68 — it isn’t even that easy for him to explain.

“I don’t know,” Thomas said Thursday. “I’m just doing, I would say, everything better.”

There’s plenty of truth in that answer, basic as it may be. He’s driving it better, approaching the green better, chipping it a lot better, and putting about the same.

“I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking or how it was then,” Thomas said. “I’m just worried about how I am now, and I’m very pleased with my game and know things are continuing to work in the right direction. I’ve just got to keep trying to play well.”

Okay, then — forget 12 months ago. Let’s talk about seven days ago, when Thomas was in this same exact position, atop the leaderboard after 18 holes. He was chipper, happy to roll through the gauntlet of interviews at the Scottish Open: TV station to TV station to radio to written press to a social media clip captured on a phone. The gear geeks were fawning over that new putter of his that was making everything. When you play great golf, the attention follows. When you don’t play well, the attention wanes. Cue the second round highlights … 

… Of Ludvig Aberg. 

By the time Thomas was done shooting two over the next morning, he was already six behind Åberg. When he finished dinner Saturday night, he was 12 shots back. Thomas chalked it up to getting “nothing out of his rounds” despite hitting great shots — blaming the hidden-from-plain-sight unluckiness of links golf. 

“I felt like on Saturday I hit it in six first cuts, and they were just kind of a strange length,” he said. “It’s similar to here where you have to guess if it’s going to jump, if it’s going to spin, and I’m pretty sure I was oh-fer six on those.

“It’s just little things like that that obviously you don’t see as an outsider or really anybody else when you’re looking at a scorecard but when I’m out there playing, I feel like I’m hitting a lot of really quality shots or drives and just getting nothing out of it.”

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We may not be out there tracking every lie he faces, but this is a two-time major champion and a 15-time Tour winner. We haven’t been ignoring him. We’ve tracked the putting woes. And his ball-striking drop-off. We were watching that 82 last year at Hoylake, and even the 81 at the U.S. Open a month prior. We tuned in when he nearly holed out to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. We debated his merit as a Ryder Cup captain’s pick, and over-analyzed if his 1-2-1 record in Rome validated it.

When his 2024 started on a high note, golf fans started betting on Thomas again. Here he comes. And the skeptics were there when he missed a second-straight cut at the Masters. But when he began this tournament four under through 11 holes, plenty of us were pleased. Why? Because we all want to believe in those scorecards these guys turn in after what seems like a stellar round. We want to know that a 68 in the wind and rain feels as meaningful as it would seem to someone searching for his first victory in three years. When you start consecutive tournaments with a better score than everyone else, we want to wonder — just like Thomas might — if this odyssey of ups and downs is almost over.

The way he talks, Thomas must see it as a journey, too. On Thursday, he said he’s close. Close to whatever feels right to him. Close to figuring out links golf. Last week was a part of it. Last year was, too. Same for whatever awaits him tomorrow.