NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The waiting is the hardest part. Justin Thomas knows how that goes. He finished his Sunday round at 3:05 p.m. and five under par. He was the leader in the house, the leader among those who had played 72 holes in this 108th PGA Championship. The leader leader, just then, was Matti Schmid, on the front nine and six under par. A bunch of others were tied with Thomas at five. Thomas, a two-time winner of this event, was not out of it. He knew, above all, what not to do:
Do not start drinking.
He learned that 10 years, as a 23-year-old at the Hartford stop. Thomas had shot a final-round 62 to go from middle-of-the-pack to leader in the clubhouse at 12 under. That score never wins at Hartford. His caddie, Jimmy Johnson, was 90 minutes down the road. Thomas and a buddy had a four-beer lunch, maybe five. The wind started howling. The leaders were not making birdies. Suddenly, 12 under started to look like it could be a winning score.
“I’ve never not wanted to be in a playoff before,” Thomas said Sunday afternoon here. “But I kinda didn’t want there to be a playoff.” In the end, Russell Knox won at 14 under.
So, no — Justin Thomas, famously a beer drinker, would not be drinking Sunday afternoon, here at Aronimink, at least not before somebody came in at six under or lower.
Thomas has played a lot of golf with Fred Couples. He likely knows the story of Fred’s first win on Tour, in 1983. Fred was in a five-man playoff at the Kemper Open at Congressional with T.C. Chen, Scott Simpson, Gil Morgan and Barry Jaeckel. The details are hazy, all these years and refreshments later, but this can be said with certainty: Barry Jaeckel had been enjoying the comforts of the Congressional clubhouse for about two hours before he was called out of it for a playoff. Jaeckel was out after one hole. Couples won on the next.
Thomas is a son (and grandson) of a PGA pro who grew up in Louisville, Ky. When he was three years old, the PGA Championship came to town, at Valhalla. A native son of Kentucky, Kenny Perry, shot a closing 68 and that made him the leader in the clubhouse. He went into the CBS broadcast booth and genially started offering some insights into his play and how the course would play for the guys still on it. When the fourth round was finished, Perry, surprisingly, was in a sudden death playoff with Mark Brooks. Perry went straight from the booth to the playoff and watched Brooks make a birdie on its first hole and win.
Justin Thomas would not be spending his Sunday afternoon in the CBS broadcast booth on 18.
Thomas has had an unlikely year. After last year’s Ryder Cup, he had surgery to alleviate pain from a herniated disk and did not play again until Bay Hill in March, where he shot 79-79. His scores were an illustration of how frail this game can be. His level of candor about the state of his game was astonishing. He seemed lost.
But the following week he had a solid top-10 finish at the Players Championship and you knew then, and Thomas knew then, that it was not as if he had forgotten how to play tournament golf.
After two rounds of 69 here, Thomas was only two shots off the lead at the tournament’s halfway mark. But a third-round 72 left him fuming and seemingly out of contention. He practiced almost through sunset.
“I was pretty sour,” Thomas said Sunday afternoon. “I was pissed off. I fought really hard to shoot the score that I did, and I felt it was the best I could shoot. But I was just upset and bummed that I didn’t play better. I practiced a lot longer than I normally would have in that situation. I just felt like I couldn’t leave the golf course in the frame of mind I was in.”
When he was done, Thomas genially signed autographs and stopped for photos for fans in front of Aronimink’s grand clubhouse.
He was off Sunday morning at 10:55, three hours and 40 minutes before the day’s final twosome. At the start of the day, Thomas was even par and six shots behind the Saturday-night leader, Alex Smalley.
Thomas went out in 33, two under par. His made three birdies, and no bogeys, in the first eight holes of his back nine. He stood on the 18th tee five under, desperate to get to six. The last hole here is an uphill 490-yard par-4 with a hot fairway. The one thing Thomas had to do was drive it in play. He backed off his tee shot, stepped in again and blistered one, as he does. His ball finished in the left rough. Thomas unpeeled a banana and ate it.
The lie was so poor his caddie pointed to the ball’s exact location with a scorecard pencil to make sure Thomas did not accidently step on it. All he could do from there was chop one out, and he did. That shot finished 40 yards short of the hole. From there he pitched to 15 feet.
The golfer in contention is so amped-up. On 17, a 172-yard par-3, Thomas hit a pitching wedge, figuring adrenaline would give him 15 extra yards. When you have all that extra speed in your system, when your heart is pounding, it’s hard to still yourself over a 15-footer. It’s hard to get in touch with your finesse side. Thomas’s friend Tiger Woods was likely the best ever at controlling breathing and heart rate and soaring emotions in times of stress. He did it routinely, going from Superman on final tees to fine-strokes oil painter on final greens. Thomas took a breath and made his 15-footer for par.
He hugged his caddie. He kissed his wife. He hugged his father. He signed for 65. He began his sober wait. If he was going to win a third PGA Championship, here at Aronimink, he would need some help. He was hanging, he was hanging, he was hanging. Five had a chance, until it didn’t. Justin Thomas’s wait was over by 6:30, with Aaron Rai at nine under par. Thomas could crack open his first one. It was fun while it lasted, if you call any of this fun.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
