Saturday went better this year for Justin Thomas.
The world No. 7 lit up the Plantation Course at Kapalua on a bright, warm day with a tournament-record, bogey-free, 12-under-par 61 to move into contention in the year-opening, winners-only tournament.
“I played well. Didn’t do anything crazy. Just took advantage of all the, I felt like, easy opportunities and chances that I had and hit a lot of really good drives, quality iron shots, and wedges. If there’s such a thing as an easy 12-under, I definitely felt like it was,” Thomas said. “I felt like yesterday closing that round out at least gave myself a chance to get a respectable week, respectable finish out of it, and if I did something berserk this weekend, I might have a chance to win.”
Starting the third round 12 shots behind overnight leader Cameron Smith, Thomas started to do his damage on the third hole with a birdie, added another on the fourth, and then dropped a 40-footer for eagle on the par-5 fifth. He made the turn in 5-under 31 following a birdie on the ninth and kept on sizzling.
Starting on the 12th, he wrote down five consecutive 3s on his scorecard, another eagle coming from 7 feet on the par-5 15th. After a birdie 3 from short range on the 16th, he wrapped up his day’s stellar work with a two-putt birdie from 22 feet on the par-5 closing hole for a 7-under 30 on the back nine.
Five players, the most recent being Xander Schauffele in the final round en route to winning in 2019, had posted 62.
When Thomas put his signature to the scorecard, he was 17 under and two shots out of the lead with leader Cameron Smith headed to the eighth tee.
Justin Thomas of the United States plays his shot from the second tee during the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 08, 2022 in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
“Just the same thing,” Thomas said about his approach come Sunday. “I wasn’t crazy aggressive today. When you have wedges in your hand with soft greens, you attack. It doesn’t matter if you’re in last or first. You’re just trying to make birdies and I felt like that’s what I did.
“I was so far back, it’s not like I could really look at the leaderboard and try to play any differently. It was just trying to birdie every hole we played.”
A year ago in Saturday’s third round of the Tournament of Champions, Thomas uttered a homophobic slur that was picked up by a TV mic and his world turned upside down. Despite a genuine, heartfelt, and proper apology, Thomas lost a sponsor and was clearly affected by the incident for many weeks to come.
This time, most of the words picked up by TV mics were playing partner and good friend, Jordan Spieth, saying, “Good shot,” over and over again. The 61 was his fifth round of 61 or better since 2015, the most on the PGA Tour.
“I was really trying to push myself to keep up,” said Spieth, who shot 68 to move to 11 under. “He has a tremendous ability to continue to push that lower and lower and lower, and it’s a skill. It was certainly fun to watch him being a buddy of mine, but I was also trying to push myself as well.”
Thomas had been frustrated in the first two rounds by a balky putter – he opened with a 74 and followed up with a 67. In the third round, however, he had made more feet of putts through 14 holes than he did the first two days combined.
He hit every green in regulation and needed just 27 putts to make 130 feet of putts.
His superb play in the Tournament of Champions comes as no surprise – he won in 2020 and 2017, and finished third last year and in 2019. Among his 14 PGA Tour titles are the 2017 PGA Championship and the 2021 Players Championship.
Thomas said his first course record came when he was a kid.
“A Junior World practice round. I can’t remember the name of the golf course. It was, I was like probably nine years old. It was like an executive course,” Thomas said. “I just remember because Tiger (Woods) had the course record, and I remember beating him and it was like the coolest thing obviously I had ever done at that time.
“Something tells me it’s not still standing. But that was the first one I had ever broken, and I was pretty pumped about that.”