Justin Thomas Proves Six Shots Are His Kind Of Lead

“I always counted Medinah as one of my top 10 difficult courses — I may have to re-think that after this week.”  — Paul Azinger

For three days it was pretty easy for Justin Thomas.  It started with one heckuva lousy warmup on Thursday and by Saturday he set a course record at Medinah with a mind-boggling 61.

On Sunday, he closed the deal, won the BMW Championship and yes, thank goodness for a six-shot lead.

If you were looking for excitement in Chicago, forget the tournament, you needed to be at Phil Mickelson’s hotel.  The Eaglewood Resort and Spa was struck by lightning early Sunday morning, caught fire and forced Mickelson and everyone else staying there into the streets.  Mickelson pondered the fact that he might miss his tee time with no one allowed back in but finally the fire was out and Phil made it to the course, next door, in his flip-flops.  A quick change into his golf shoes, a few warm-up swings and he was off.

Yes, that was the most exciting thing that happened Sunday.

Sure, J.T. won this one.  No one doubted he would with that six-shot lead.  He’s a major champion and a closer and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t find a fairway most of the day, he played well enough to take the No. 1 spot at East Lake and yes, the six shots came in handy.

This was an irregular final day.  They went off early, in threesomes, off No. 1 and No. 10 to beat some predicted late afternoon storms.

Thomas had some early storms in his round.  By the 10th hole, six pars, two birdies and two bogeys had him going the wrong way.  His lead was evaporating with playing partner Pat Cantlay in hot  pursuit.

Then, like a major champ, he stuck his approach at the par four 11th to two feet and that jump-started his march to victory.  “The birdie at 11 was huge,” J.T. would say afterward.  “That kinda propelled me the rest of the way.”  It propelled him to three more birdies coming home then at the 72nd hole, he ran one in on Cantlay for a 68 and a BMW record 25-under par.  That was three shots clear of the hard-charging Cantlay who derailed himself with a bogey at the 16th then finished birdie-birdie for 65 and solo second that set him up as the No. 2 guy at East Lake behind Thomas, stealing that spot from world’s No. 1 Brooks Koepka.

Speaking of Koepka, the regular season points champ finally got it going over his final eight holes Sunday.  He played them five-under to shoot 67 and get to double-digits under par.  His 10-under total stopped his slide, somewhat, and he’ll start the Tour Championship as the No. 3 guy behind J.T. and Cantlay.

Thomas is the guy who has the momentum with Cantlay not far behind.

“I was really nervous today,” Thomas admitted, who hadn’t won since the first week of August, last year when he won the now-defunct WGC-Bridgestone.

“I forgot how hard it is to win.  Patrick (Cantlay) made it very interesting.  It feels great,” he said, then admitted — “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

He does, in fact, after a day that saw him miss a bunch of fairways.

Good news is that he got his 10th tour win and when he gets to East Lake — he’s a 10 handicapper.

BMW Championship Scoreboard: