Thomas: 'It's going to be tough' starting TOUR Championship with two-shot lead

ATLANTA – Justin Thomas had won nine times on the PGA TOUR before last week’s BMW Championship. He started the final round at Medinah Country Club with a comfy six-shot cushion.

Despite his experience withstanding Sunday pressure, and the distance between himself and the rest of the field, Thomas admitted that he was “really nervous” at the start of the day. Thomas’ lead was whittled down to just two strokes with eight holes left, but he birdied half of the remaining holes to win for the first time in more than a year.

How did he right the ship? He told himself, “Hey, you have a two-shot lead standing on the 11th tee on Sunday.”

“If I have a two-shot lead with eight holes left, I feel confident I can pull it off.”

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Last week’s win vaulted Thomas to the top of the FedExCup standings. He has another two-shot lead, but now there are 72 holes remaining. Thomas has technically led the TOUR Championship since Sunday, giving him four extra nights to sleep on the lead.

“It’s going to be tough,” said Thomas, the 2017 FedExCup champion. “I think (Thursday) I’ll kind of feel it for the first time.”

That’s when this new TOUR Championship finally gets underway. There has been much discussion over the past year, and especially in the last three days, about how players will handle the season finale’s new staggered start.

Players agree that the best way to handle this new format is to not think about it.

“I’m just going to have to try to play another golf tournament and act like everyone’s staring at zero and try to shoot the lowest 72 holes,” said Thomas, who will start the final round with a two-stroke lead over Patrick Cantlay.

Thomas is five shots ahead of Rory McIlroy, who’s fifth in the FedExCup, and 10 shots ahead of the last five players to qualify for the TOUR Championship.

When McIlroy won both the FedExCup and TOUR Championship three years ago, he made up three shots in the final three holes before winning in a playoff. The lowest score in relation to par, including the starting strokes, wins both titles this week. McIlroy has a target score, not Thomas, at the front of his mind.

The winning score at East Lake has been between 11 and 13-under-par in four of the last five years (it was 9 under in the other year).

“If I was in JT’s position, it would be, OK, I’m just going to set myself a target for the week. … You say, ‘OK, I’m going to go out and shoot 67 every day. No one should beat me if I do that,’” McIlroy said. “I think you have to just control what you can.”

Thomas is the pacesetter, so he controls how this week transpires. A strong start could eliminate most of the field, while some early struggles may bring most of the 30-man field into the mix. The rough is thick this week at East Lake, making it harder for someone to run away from the field.

Cantlay said he’d want some odds if Thomas asked for two shots in a match at home in Jupiter, Florida, even if it was 72 holes. Like Thomas, Cantlay also has a win this season. Cantlay overcame a large deficit in the final round of his victory at the Memorial, while Thomas watched his lead get whittled away.

Cantlay was four shots behind 54-hole leader Martin Kaymer entering the final round at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Cantlay’s 64 was the low final round by a winner in tournament history. He beat Kaymer by eight on that day.

“I felt like I was always chasing that day,” Cantlay said.

This week, his pursuit begins Thursday. He will play in the shadow of Thomas in Thursday’s final group. Thomas will control the tournament when he steps to the tee.

“There isn’t a person on the planet that’s experienced this before, for the stakes it’s for,” Thomas said. “I’m just going to try to deal with it the best I can.”