Thomas holds on to win BMW
MEDINAH, Ill. – Justin Thomas had more stress than he wanted and answered with the shots he needed Sunday at Medinah to win the BMW Championship and claim the No. 1 seed going into the FedEx Cup finale.
Thomas watched a six-shot lead shrink to two in a span of three holes around the turn until he regained control with two great wedges, and two pivotal putts. One last birdie gave him a 4under 68 and a three-shot victory over Patrick Cantlay, who gave him a battle to the end with a 65.
“I was really nervous today. It’s hard to play with a lead,” Thomas said. “You don’t know how often things like this will happen, and it feels great.”
The victory, the first for Thomas since the World Golf Championship at Firestone last year, gives him a two-shot lead starting the Tour Championship next week as the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup chase the $15 million prize.
The field will have a staggered start based on their position in the FedEx Cup, meaning Thomas starts at 10-under par.
The top 30 who advanced includes Lucas Glover, who went bogey-double bogey late in his round until finishing with a par to wrap up his first trip to East Lake in 10 years.
It will not include Masters champion Tiger Woods, the defending champion.
Woods was a long shot going into the final round to crack the top 30, and he closed with a 72. East Lake was his first victory in five years, capping his return from four back surgeries, a special moment replaced some six months later by his Masters victory.
“It’s disappointing,” Woods said. “Last year culminated in a pretty special moment for me and would have been nice to go back there.”
Hideki Matsuyama took the 36-hole lead with a 63 until falling back with a 73. He responded with another 63 to finish alone in third, making him one of three players who moved into the top 30 to reach East Lake. The other was Jason Kokrak, but only after J.T. Poston made bogey on his final hole.
The U.S. team for the Presidents Cup didn’t change, with Bryson DeChambeau holding down the final spot. Tony Finau would have needed to finish alone in third. He closed with a 69 to finish fourth, unable to keep up with Matsuyama.
Nothing changed for the International team either, as Jason Day failed to earn one of the eight automatic spots.
Both captains, Woods and Ernie Els, will have four picks on Nov. 5.
With so much at stake, the one certainty going into the final round would have seemed to be the winner. Thomas had a six-shot lead, and only seven players dating to 1928 had ever lost a lead that big on the PGA Tour.
Thomas didn’t hit a fairway until the fifth hole. He still had a six-shot lead when his chip from across the green on the par-5 seventh nearly went for eagle.
And then it turned quickly.
Cantlay made an 8-foot birdie on No. 7, followed with a 12-foot birdie on No. 8 and a 6-foot birdie on No. 9. Thomas then helped out by hitting his second to the par-5 10th under a tree, hitting lefthanded to get it out and making bogey. Cantlay made his fourth straight birdie, and the lead was down to two with eight holes remaining.
That’s when Thomas came to life with a wedge to 2 feet for birdie.
“The birdie on 11 was huge,” Thomas said. “That propelled me for the rest of the round.”
He followed with two key putts, and the most important might have been for par. He drove into the right rough and had to play some 65 yards short of the green, hitting wedge up to about 12 feet. Cantlay had a 15-foot birdie putt, and a two-shot swing would have cut the lead to one.
Cantlay missed. Thomas made his par putt, stepping forward with a fist pump.
Thomas finished at 25-under 263 – seven shots lower than what Woods shot at Medinah when he won the 2006 PGA Championship – and earned $1,665,000. Even more money is at stake next week, though this was a burden lifted. All he cared about was winning.
PGA Tour Champions
ENDICOTT, N.Y. – Doug Barron became the 13th Monday qualifier to win a PGA Tour Champions event, holing two 15-foot birdie putts after a rain delay to beat Fred Couples by two strokes in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.
Making his second senior start after turning 50 last month, Barron closed with a 6-under 66 at at En-Joie Golf Club to finish the wire-to-wire victory at 17under 199. With Couples in the clubhouse after a 63, Barron returned from the rain delay to hole the first 15-footer on the par-4 15th to break a tie for the lead, then doubled the advantage with the second one on the par-3 17th.
The 59-year-old Couples was back at En-Joie for the first time in 24 years. He won the PGA Tour’s 1991 B.C. Open at the course.
Barron is the first open qualifier to win since Willie Wood in the 2012 event at En-Joie, and the first to win wire-towire. After tying for fifth in the Senior British Open in his Champions debut, Barron got into the field Monday with a 66 at The Links at Hiawatha Landing.
European Tour
VYSOKY UJEZD, Czech Republic – Thomas Pieters shot a 3-under 69 to become the first golfer to win the Czech Masters for the second time, beating Adri Arnaus of Spain by one stroke.
Pieters took a three-shot lead after a birdie on the 7th only to bogey the 8th. The overnight leader added a birdie and a bogey on the back nine in the final round to finish on 19-under 269 for his fourth European Tour victory, and his first since the 2016 Made In Denmark tournament.