Justin Thomas resets into Charles Schwab Challenge
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Written by Kevin Robbins
Justin Thomas on what he has learned from caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay
FORT WORTH — The freshly crowned winner of the PGA Championship practiced the oddest little drill this week at Colonial Country Club.
He tried to forget the PGA Championship.
Justin Thomas does, after all, have another golf tournament at another course that bears the design imprint of Perry Maxwell. He makes his third Charles Schwab Challenge start on Thursday. He won the second major of his career, his 15th PGA TOUR title, three long days ago. He rallied from seven strokes back into the final round at Southern Hills, besting Will Zalatoris in a three-hole aggregate playoff. But it’s also in the past.
“It’s just putting it behind me,” he said after nine pro-am holes Wednesday morning. “Obviously I want to enjoy it and I don't want to just act like it didn't happen, because it did. But at the same time, I have a week (off) next week … to just enjoy it.”
Thomas wants to remember plenty of what transpired Sunday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He kept his resolve. He kept trying. He executed a driver-approach sequence on the 72nd hole that should live in his golf dreams forever. He made birdie after a drive in the rough on the first playoff hole. He was 5-for-5 in sand saves from the harsh, pebbly bunkers at Southern Hills.
“I wouldn’t have been able to win if it wasn’t for that,” he said.
The best part? He was eight shots behind with 10 holes left. He played them 4-under, with no bogeys.
“That’s unfathomable,” Thomas said. “It’s a huge learning lesson for me.” The point: Keep playing.
Old courses such as Southern Hills and Colonial appeal to him, he said. Thomas likes the variety of holes that bend and twist and pivot. The massive pecans at Colonial force players to shape shots and ask themselves an existential question in golf: How much risk is worth a certain level of reward?
“You just have to be smart around here,” Thomas said.
In 2020, Thomas played a Charles Schwab Challenge largely free of spectators, staff and volunteers after the coronavirus pandemic previously had canceled 11 tournaments and postponed others. He shot 6-under 64 in the first round, en route to a T10. He shared 40th place last year. He arrived Monday, unpacked, ate lunch and went to the gym.
It felt like a reset after a momentous afternoon in Oklahoma.
“I have a golf tournament this week,” Thomas said, “and I'm just trying to perform and play as well as I possibly can, and hopefully give us something else to celebrate.”