The Open: Justin Thomas and form’s unrequited love

A peculiar thing happens on Friday at golf tournaments.

As the late starters make their way to the tee to start their second round, those who have already finished and have missed the cut walk in the opposite direction, trailing their golf bags in a flight case behind them.

It’s a tragicomic spectacle, a collision of both worlds and fortune that manifests in the sport’s finest margins.

Justin Thomas has become much too familiar with the wrong side of that walk.

It happened again at Royal Liverpool today. Rounds of 82 and 71 brought his Open Championship to a premature end, the third such time that’s happened in the majors this year. On the one occasion he did make it beyond Friday – his US PGA title defence in May – the 30-year-old finished in a tie for 69th, ahead of only five other players who made the cut.

Success, as Thomas has discovered, is a fickle mistress with a wandering eye and a lust for breaking hearts.

Since the turn of the year, the American has slipped from eighth to 20th on the world rankings, has missed five cuts in 16 PGA Tour starts, is a combined 21-under-par, and has made ‘only’ $3,014,473.

For context, Scottie Scheffler has played the same number of events, is 186-under, and has banked $18,415,696.

The period since and including The Masters makes for even more miserable reading for Thomas. As many cuts made as missed; a combined two-over-par; a stroke average of 71.1; ‘just’ $1,093,470 in on-course earnings.

For the vast majority of the men’s professional game, such results wouldn’t amount to much more than a wobble, if even. But whether through winning two majors, spending five weeks as world No.1, winning 15 times on the PGA Tour, or even shooting 59, Thomas has demonstrated time and again that he shouldn’t be measured by the same standards as everybody else.

Consequently, others’ blip is his slump.

And before you can begin to stop it, you first must understand how it started.

The Cause

One look at Thomas’ stats on the PGA Tour this season exposes his weakness. Entering this week, he was 152nd in Strokes Gained: Putting, losing almost 0.262 strokes to field.

That’s almost last.

In a bid to turn things around, he started using the AimPoint approach at the Wells Fargo Championship in May.

“I do all the appropriate work in terms of my start line, my mechanics and I just need to basically have faith and trust in my ability that I’m choosing right,” he said at the time. “At the end of the day whether it’s AimPoint, whether it’s reading the greens, it’s a guess; it’s just your best guess and I need to have more faith that my guess is really good.”

After a miserable week on the greens at Royal Liverpool – with several players still to complete their second round, he’s 109th in SG: Putting – it’s reasonable to wonder if that faith has been tested.

Not that he has been pulling up trees from tee to green.

A miserable 130th on tour in driving accuracy – hitting only 56.78% of his fairways – he’s 71st in SG: Off The Tee and 34th in SG: Approach The Green. He has his less than two-thirds of greens in regulation (112th on tour) and is 43rd in SG: Total.

Bottom line: the putter’s an issue, not the only issue.

In a similar predicament, other players might be inclined to consider their coaching options. For Thomas, that’s hard to do. His dad, Mike, is his instructor,

“It’s been tough”, admitted Thomas Jnr after completing his second round at Hoylake. “He feels bad as a coach. He hates it for me as a father.

“Neither one of us want anything to be bad when it comes to my golf, but we’re working hard. We’re trying as hard as we can.”

With a puff of the cheeks and a stare to nowhere in particular, he added: “It doesn’t make sense. Some days, I’ll hit shots like a No.1 player in the world, and then I’ll make a nine on my last hole.

“I don’t know if it’s a focus thing or if I’m just putting too much pressure on myself or what it is, but when I figure it out, I’ll be better for it.”

His resumé would certainly suggest he will be. But time is running out if he wants to avoid having a ‘2023’ sized hole on it.

"Form is temporary, class is permanent"

A brilliant birdie from Justin Thomas! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/4F8AKtV5Yq

— Sky Sports Golf (@SkySportsGolf) July 21, 2023

The Effect

Thomas has been sharing a house this week with US Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson.

He too nice to say it in public but, privately, Johnson was banking on Thomas making it to Rome on merit, and justifiably so.

With six-and-a-half points from nine matches, Thomas has been a revelation since making his Ryder Cup debut at Le Golf National in 2018.

Fold in his three Presidents Cup appearances, he has chalked up 17.5 points from a possible 24 for his country.

Using a pick on him – he’s currently 13th on the US Ryder Cup standings – would feel like a waste for Johnson, not to mention hard to justify.

“I’m concerned about him just because he’s my buddy and I know what he’s capable of,” Johnson told bunkered.co.uk. “As far as the Ryder Cup goes, obviously he’s a stalwart in that event, right?

“Those kind of moments like that, he’s one of the best there is.

“Bottom line, is this game is really hard. There’s going to be peaks, there’s going to be some valleys. Let’s hope whatever sort of non-peak he’s in, it’s short. I know he’s got a great team. I love his coaches.

“Guys with talent like that that work and aren’t afraid to put their feet in the dirt, if you will, not to be cliché, typically find it. It’s just a matter of when, not if. He’s too darned good. The kid doesn’t quit.”

That’s for sure. To his credit, Thomas acknowledges the problem his play is creating for Johnson.

“Obviously, I want to make the Ryder Cup more than anything,” he said. “I’m probably trying too hard to do it. It reminds me a lot of my first or second year on tour.

“I tried so hard to make that team for the first time, so I’m in a very similar position.

“I’ve been trying to make it easy on Zach and get in the top six, but I seem to not want to do that with my golf.”

In Thomas’ favour are his record and his experience. That counts for something when it comes to the Ryder Cup. Ask Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, or any of the other players who have been picked in recent times for their past more than their present.

“I would say individuals that have really played well in that should be or can be a part of the stew,” added Johnson. “I’ve seen it. A guy that isn’t in great form that’s got a lot of experience goes in and plays great.”

That’s certainly what Thomas is banking on.

“It’s not like I’m going to write [Zach] a love letter or anything,” he laughed. “I would like to think that my record is my best argument. I love the team events. I thrive in them. I just enjoy it. Playing with a partner could kind of ease me a little bit, relax me.

“I hate even having to hope for a pick. This is the first time since I first qualified that I’ve had to rely on a captain’s pick, and it’s not fun, especially when you’re trending the wrong way when other people are trending toward it.

“I’m just hoping that I can finish this year out strong and my record speaks for itself.”

The Ryder Cup, though, is the scenic route, a pleasant diversion from the standstill to which Thomas’ career appears to have juddered. At some point, he’ll still have to figure it out.

Justin Thomas improved his score by 11 shots on Friday (82-71).

It's the biggest improvement from round 1 to round 2 in an Open at Royal Liverpool since 1936.

That year, C.A. Winks opened 92-76.

— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) July 21, 2023

The Fix

Francesco Molinari knows a thing or two about struggling.

In 2018, as Thomas was make a top-scoring debut for the US in the Ryder Cup, Molinari – the reigning Open champion – was becoming the first European to win five points from five matches in the contest.

Fast-forward six months, the Italian had one arm in the Green Jacket as he led The Masters into the back nine on Sunday. Then he found the water at 12, again at 15, finished in a tie fifth, and has never been the same since.

Entering this week, Molinari is 157th on the world rankings and had missed the cut in his last five starts. Rounds of 73 and 75 at Royal Liverpool made it six consecutive weekends without a tee time for the one-time world No.5.

He’s facing many of the same questions as Thomas, this one chief amongst them.

Where do you start with the process of trying to turn the corner?

The rueful smile said it all

“If I knew the answer to that, everything would be so much simpler,” he told us. “That’s golf. The margins are so small. There’s a lot of different factors that go into it. It’s complicated. Everybody goes through ups and downs. You’ve just got to do your best to navigate them all.”

If Thomas wants a more relatable example, he could do worse than talk to close friend Rickie Fowler. This time last year, the then world No.149 was watching The Open with the rest of us, having failed to qualify for St Andrews – the first time he’d missed the championship since making his debut in 2010.

Three weeks ago, he ended a four-and-a-half-year winless drought with a win in the Rocket Mortgage Classic. He’s now back inside the world’s top-30.

Then there’s Brooks Koepka, whose own struggles were exposed for the whole world to see in Netflix docuseries ‘Full Swing’.

“Golf’s so crazy,” he observed, “because when you have it, you feel like you’re never gonna lose it, and when you don’t have it, you feel like you’re never gonna get it.”

If Justin Thomas feels like that right now – and there’s a good chance he does – he can console himself with the fact that Koepka has finished tied for second at the Masters and won the US PGA since that episode aired.

For whatever it’s worth, Thomas also has Rory McIlroy in his corner.

“JT will be just okay,” said the Irishman after his second round. “He’s one of the most talented guys out here. He shot 69 at TPC a couple years ago in 40mph winds and I always remind him of it.

“We all go through bad patches. That’s golf. There’s not one player in the world that hasn’t. But he’s got the right people around him, and he’s got the right work ethic to get himself out of it.”

“Everybody has their waves,” added Thomas. “Their kind of momentum and rides and ‘rock bottoms’, whatever you want to call it.

“I just keep telling myself, this is it, I’m coming out of it. Unfortunately, I’ve surprised myself a couple times with some bad rounds.

“It doesn’t mean a day’s good play like today doesn’t get a spark going. I don’t know. All I can do is try to be in the frame of mind for it.

“I’ll be good.”

Let’s hope so. Weekends off are overrated anyway.

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor