Justin Thomas Grabs 1st Major In Stout Fashion

The 99th PGA Championship ultimately turned into a pretty good little major. While the leaderboard didn’t have Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson or Rory McIlroy in the final groups, it was still nip and tuck until the last hole with notable names vying for their first major win.

Justin Thomas (dropping from 28/1 to 40/1 in pre-PGA betting) entered the event with 3 wins, a 59 and a 63 in a major this year–already an excellent season. And he’s had to endure good buddy Spieth earning his third major victory at The Open last month. But the long-hitting wonder played smart golf down the stretch with a few fortunate bounces, a delayed birdie putt finally dropping after at least 10 seconds and chipped in for birdie (that after a hooked drive bounced off a tree back into the fairway).

Crazy stat: Of Thomas’ five Tour wins, the PGA was his first on U.S. mainland soil (two overseas and two in Hawaii).

It was a vintage win as Hideki Matsuyama, Rickie Fowler, upstart Chris Stroud and Patrick Reed (who amazingly earned his first top-10 major finish) made late runs. Thomas’ veteran caddie Jimmy Johnson thinks he knows the reason why his boss earned the Wanamaker Trophy.

“I think what he learned is that he has to play his game and not force it,” said veteran caddie Jimmy Johnson, who left Steve Stricker to work for Thomas full time two years ago. “Let the course come to him and play a little smarter. He was trying too hard, maybe. I don’t think he was so much frustrated as he was playing too hard. He’s just letting his potential go through now.”

It was that potential that convinced Johnson to make the move to Thomas — at Stricker’s urging.

Remember, Thomas was who “loaned” Spieth his caddie Michael Greller at the U.S. Amateur before Jordan turned pro.

Thomas explained how he felt as boyhood rival/friend Spieth had so much early Tour success.

“Frustration probably isn’t the right word; jealousy definitely is,” Thomas said, laughing. “I mean, there’s no reason to hide it. I would say anybody is jealous that I won [Sunday]. I was jealous that Sergio [Garcia] won [the Masters]; that Brooks [Koepka] won [the U.S. Open]; that Jordan won. I wanted to be doing that, and I wasn’t.”

“It’s a cool little friendship we have,” Thomas said. “I think it shows where the game is right now, where all of us are. We obviously all want to win. We want to beat the other person. But if we can’t win, we at least want to enjoy it with our friends. I think that we’ll all be able to enjoy this together, and I know it’s going to make them more hungry, just like it did me.”

The victories by Spieth and Thomas in consecutive majors was a milestone of sorts, the first time two players under the age of 25 won back-to-back since 1923, when Bobby Jones won The Open and Gene Sarazen captured the PGA Championship.

Other notes:

  • Matsuyama had top-15 finishes in all four majors this year. CBS analyst Nick Faldo estimated a major win for Hideki (and the first for any Japanese player) would be worth at least $500,000,000. But the constant daily scrutiny from the Japanese media’s hellacious pressure may prevent that from ever happening.
  • Thomas and Matsuyama hit 7-irons on the par-3 221-yard 17th. 7-irons…
  • Fowler, who finished three back, will sadly look back at his Saturday finish going bogey-double-bogey (+4) on his last three holes. He had another year where his worst major finish was T22 (twice) along with two T5s.
  • Louis Oosthuizen became the 7th player to have runner-up finishes in all four majors.

  • For the eighth time in the past nine major championships, a first-timer raised the trophy, with guys under age 30 each capturing the past three.

Pre-tournament favorite Jon Rahm never got it going on the weekend, but did deliver some creative magic when faced with this shot.

Rod Pampling–who was going to miss the cut–earned hero status by quickly hitting on 18 to insure his group would finish on Friday and preventing an early wakeup call Saturday morning. But Rod, that swing??!!

Finally, there was this nugget as Thomas hoisted the trophy.

In the chaotic aftermath, amid all the backslapping, high-fiving and hugging, Thomas and Spieth had time for quick embrace.

“I finally got one like you,” Thomas said.

“No,” Spieth said, pausing. “I don’t have this one.”