Justin Thomas shot last week 79-79. He missed the cut. He finished in last place at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
This week? Justin Thomas opened with a completely different double: 68-68. In two rounds he is T4 in the Players Championshipin contention for a second TPC Sawgrass title in his first five years.
But regardless of what happens this weekend — and if you’ll pardon the cliché — Thomas is already leaving this week a winner.
It’s always hard to know how easy it is for top pros to wipe the slate clean after a bad week. Thomas’ 79-79 came under specific circumstances; Bay Hill was his first competitive appearance after a four-month layoff following back surgery last fall. A long absence meant, in theory, that Thomas could give himself a break. However, in reality? When a reporter asked him if giving grace had helped him carry on; Thomas could only laugh.
“You probably wouldn’t say that if you were around me on Friday afternoon. I was more sad and upset,” he said. He had struggled to keep his focus. He had struggled to find his way out. He had struggled to hit the greens. And he had struggled to put when he had got there. All this was understandable, from an outsider’s point of view. It was a little harder for Thomas to handle.
“When you post two pretty humiliating results, it’s hard to give yourself much credit,” he said.
His final answer on Thursday was particularly revealing.
How validating is thathe asked, that maybe you weren’t as far away as you might have seemed (last week)?
Thomas could have gotten the hint that his golf game — and his confidence in that golf game — could be shaken in two bad rounds. He admitted otherwise.
“Man, that helps,” he said. “I took a deep breath for myself walking away (his last hole) and I said to myself, ‘I needed that one.'”
Then on Friday, Thomas followed up that opening-round 68 with another strong day, birdieing the challenging 18th to match his Day 1 score by one.
It wasn’t easy, especially mentally. On the back nine Thomas told his minister, Matt “Rev” how hard he was having a hard time concentrating.
“I’m holding space, and (I’m) on the ball and I’m kind of not thinking about anything. I’m not thinking about the shot I’m trying to hit, I’m not thinking about the space I’m trying to hit. I just miss,” he said.
You wouldn’t have known it by looking at it. Thomas’ round was an exercise in patience; he hit the first six in regulation and birdied his first six holes before starting to show his short game, first with an up-and-down putt from 150 yards on No. 7, then a 20-footer for birdie on No. 8, then another par from the bunker on No. 10 and then the crown jewel, left for the green shot on No. 1. shot Thomas on the leader board.
“It was a pretty sick chip,” he said. “I just tried to visualize it and see it and hit my spot, and luckily the hole was blocked. It was nice to steal one there.”
Thomas chipped his tee shot on the next hole and bogeyed it – a matter of focus, he says – before calling the ball the rest of the way home. He had birdies within 18 feet on each of his last six holes, made two of them and booked himself a late time for Saturday.
“The biggest thing for me is commitment and feeling confident about the decision I’ve made, the club I’m hitting, whatever it is,” Thomas said. He clearly found something there. Now it’s a matter of keeping it going.
It’s only fitting that Thomas’ comeback comes at this tournament, where just a year ago he rebounded from a first-round 78 to a second-round 62. He is a resilient golfer.
Thomas has a lot to gain at the weekend, namely reversing a worrying trend of results at the sport’s biggest events. Thomas remains one of the sport’s top talents, but since winning the 2021 Players, he has finished no better than T33 in four back-to-back visits. And since winning the 2022 PGA Championship, he has cracked the top 30 at a major just once, a T8 at the 2024 PGA, missing seven of 14 cuts in the process. His last win came less than a year ago, and in a signature event, last year’s RBC Legacy. However, as we have been reminded, the Players are on another level. The fight here would go a long way.
But Thomas has already come a long way. Shooting 79-79 and coming back a week later to shoot 68-68 gives him a foundation of confidence that’s easy to build on. Earlier this week he spoke about being disciplined in his rehab and said he’s trying to take the long view.
“I can play this sport competitively and really, really well for another 10 to 15 years, no problem if I do it right,” he said. (Thomas is 32.)
“It’s bad … not being sharp for some of these events that I like. But, you know, in the big picture it’s like, if I fight early in the year to come back from this injury and win some big races this year, like nobody’s going to remember that I just shot 14 at Bay Hill, right?”
They can remember. But only because it would be a great start to a great story.
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