NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Justin Thomas has competed in hundreds of pro golf tournaments, which means his father, Mike Thomas, knows the show well. If you go out early and shoot during the day, wait until someone beats it.
So it made sense that, just minutes after his son managed to par with an angry fist pump — winning the best 72-hole score to that point — a very long afternoon came into focus.
“I mean, he’s going to have to sit here hours,father Thomas told Jillian Thomas, Justin’s wife, after their Sunday was upended by their favorite golfer. JT’s final round of 65 was completed at 3:05pm and he was already off to tackle the myriad of tasks ahead for the Low Man In The House.
It starts with signing a scorecard to ratify the entire agreement. As Thomas officiated, he pulled out a water bottle and stole views of the broadcast on a nearby flat screen. At 3:12 – it’s amazing how much can happen in just a few minutes in a major championship – the scores are tallied. Jordan Spieth and his wife stop by to say congratulations! AND Goodbye! and the Rolex is attached to the left wrist. It’s interview time.
First up is Amanda Balionis and CBS, sharing the best shots of Thomas against a backdrop of newly purchased cedar trees. Fifteen steps away is CBS Sports, somewhat of a different media entity. Then there’s Sirius XM and, after that, the PGA of America’s own digital platforms. Each interview is basically the same, but at least it buys some time for the rest of the field to make some progress. Around 3:15, Mike Thomas is thinking again about the rest of his day. Now, though, the internal dialogue is about more than just planning—it’s about the nagging feeling that his son might not be out on the golf tour. He calls out to JT’s caddy, Matt Minister, who pulls the clubs toward the locker room five steps ahead:
“There’s something about putting the number one out there,” says Mike. It’s the first real warning sent to the leaders, who still have a dozen holes to play. Alex Smalley, then beating JT by one shot, stayed on fourth down. Jon Rahm, tied with JT, was about to bogey the 7th hole.
The Thomases are a golfing family. Mike is a lifelong club professional and continues to care for his son. His father, Paul, was also a lifelong professional, and was one of Justin’s favorite people in the world. They have been sitting at the top of the club before. Hell, JT won his last major, the 2022 PGA Championship, after waiting nearly an hour for a playoff. The Thomas clan knew what JT knew, which would take a long time for everyone else to know: They weren’t out of it. Not by a long shot. This PGA Championship could conceivably – and perhaps realistically – end with Thomas as the winner. But his only maid on the front nine was staring at them. And Mother Nature had to get involved.
“I hope to see the wind once it starts blowing,” Justin said during a 12-minute press conference with reporters. “I need some wind. I need a little help.”
He was running the club, which felt good. But he also had something else. Something a little better: for rent–HOUSES the bullet.
The Thomases rented a house close to the course this week – in posh Newtown Square – and probably paid a pretty penny to do so. There is a swing in JT’s backyard and his daughter, Molly, played all week. The Aronimink Club is a massive, gorgeous mess of wood and stone, but it doesn’t compare to the living room with your family. So, at around 3:49, Justin left the golf course with a bright red cane slung over his shoulder, driven in a white courtesy car by Jillian. When would we see him again? We can see those again, how do winners do with their partners?
As they left, Padraig Harrington Tomas didn’t give him a chance. “(The main guy is) not going to stay at five under, unfortunately for Justin Thomas,” Harrington said. “Somebody’s going to get to seven or eight less. Especially after he’s posted that score. They already know what they have to beat.”
That’s the whole deal, right? More often than not, the pros tear up a course and jockey for position on the leaderboard, well out of sight of each other. They can learn little from the noise of the crowd, but they can learn everything by taking a look at the digital leaderboards throughout the property. Thomas didn’t look at the leaderboard until he was in the interview tent.
When Thomas took his first look at that leaderboard, he was thinking a cliché that doubled as a coping mechanism: you just never know.
Sam Burns knows. He finished his Sunday at par and, about 90 minutes into JT’s holding pattern. “I had to wait like that when I won the Colonial,” Burns said. It was whipping that day in Dallas, just like the wind has been whipping all week here in Philadelphia. Burns started that day seven days ago and said he waited for three hours that afternoon, after all defeating Scottie Scheffler in a playoff sinking a 38-ft.
Many pros have endured a long wait before a playoff, but three hours is virtually unheard of. Only Burns could remember doing so, and as it turned out, he was wrong too. Burns barely waited two hours after his round at Colonial, involved in a playoff. Always waiting feels longer than it actually is.
If Thomas had opened Instagram at any point during the finals, he would have seen that part of his press conference had started to go viral. He was asked if there is an art to waiting in the direction of the club. And no, there is no art, he said, but there definitely is one error the way to do it. At the 2016 Travelers Championship, Thomas got out early and posted a 62 for a 12-under total. Thinking he was out of the running, he had sent his cab to catch a train. He invited his friend to the club for lunch, and then proceeded to drink four or five beers and watch a windy afternoon propel him up the leaderboard.
“I’ve never wanted to be in a playoff before,” he said Sunday. “But I kind of didn’t want to be in a playoff then. That wouldn’t be a good situation. So I won’t (re)do that, I promise you that.”
Back in Philly, Thomas watched with his family while his caddy, Matt Minister, watched with his. The minister spent about 45 minutes with a cousin who lives nearby. Then he sat down to dinner for the next hour of play, sometimes alone.
“It’s so out of your control, it’s actually not really nerve-wracking,” the minister said. True as this may be, the minister had never endured such a reception in his ten years of service. He exchanged messages with Thomas the entire time, several hilly miles between them as everyone on the field took steps forward and steps back. At 5pm, Aaron Rai surprised everyone and took the lead with a shot. The minister left the dinner and found the leather wrappers inside the Champions League corner of the players’ dressing room.
One would think, as the entire golfing world becomes fixated on these major championships, that the players and caddies at the center of it all could sit around and watch all the horses finish the race. But no. They are in everything else. Another race. Scottie Scheffler graciously tipped off the locker room staff, packed his tracker and gave some gear to the local cop who walked with him as security all week. Then he left with a big smile. His next tour starts on Thursday.
I caught the minister at the edge of the parking lot just as things were getting real. He was carrying a drawstring bag with his belongings, ready to go, but forced to stay. He spoke like a caddy, counting the shots Rai needed to hit to become the club’s next leader. Rai was at seven under 15 and two clear of Thomas. If he just birdied the first two shots on the 16, it would be easy from there. (And it was.) Thomas had vowed to return when the final groups reached the 14th hole, and before long he was back at Aronimink, same pink pants, same white T-shirt, same dose of red in tow. He was about to warm up.
How was the last three hours? I asked Thomas around 6:30 p.m. He was dressed in black and dragged a suitcase to his courtesy car.
“It was weird, man,” he began. How could it not be? So close and so far, on the leaderboard and in the neighborhood.
In the end, Tomas’ three-hour wait had ended in pain. After the better part of two and a half hours at the rental house, the Thomases weren’t out of it, so they decided to get back in the car and head to the golf course. The rental house was only minutes from the golf course, but it’s amazing how much can happen in a few minutes at a major championship. As it turned out, the rental house was quite far away.
“The time between leaving my (rental) house and coming here,” Thomas said, “Aaron was a bird.”
“I was like, Oh, wow. It’s really over now.“
;)
