Thomas in command en route to victory
AKRON, Ohio — Nervous at the start, Justin Thomas was in full control at the Bridgestone Invitational to the end. He had a four-shot lead and faced a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole that would only determine his margin of victory.
And then he nearly lost it. He marked his ball, turned toward the back of the green and saw his grandparents, Paul and Phyllis Thomas, who had never seen him win since his joined the PGA Tour.
Paul Thomas is a career club pro who himself played at Firestone in the 1960 PGA Championship. His grandmother is one of his biggest supporters who navigated her way around the hills of Firestone using a walker in 90-degree heat.
Thomas bowed his head to collect his emotions, which were stronger than when he won the PGA Championship last summer.
“I just got a huge knot in my throat and I just had to put my head down,” he said after closing with a 1-under 69 for his first World Golf Championship title. “I’ve never gotten like that on the golf course before. You just don’t know if they’re ever going to see me win if I don’t win here. So it was pretty cool to get it done.”
They saw a one-man show Sunday that sent Thomas to Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis with high hopes of joining Tiger Woods as the only back-toback winners of the PGA Championship in stroke play.
Playing in the final group with Rory McIlroy, the 25-year-old Thomas never let anyone closer than two shots of the lead. He made only two birdies but left the mistakes to everyone within range of him.
In the final World Golf Championship at Firestone, on the South course where Tiger Woods set a PGA Tour record with eight victories, he tried to end with a bang and turned in a dud. Woods made two double bogeys and three bogeys on the back nine and salvaged a 73 to finish 15 shots behind. Firestone has held tour events since the Rubber City Open in 1954. The World Series of Golf began in 1962, and it became an official PGA Tour event in 1976. In many respects, it was the precursor to the World Golf Championships by bringing in winners from around the world. Bridgestone has shifted its title sponsorship to the PGA Tour Champions, which will bring its Senior Players Championship to Firestone next year. The World Golf Championship instead will move to Memphis.
RENO, Nev. — Andrew Putnam won the Barracuda Championship on Sunday for his first PGA Tour title, holding off Chad Campbell by four points in the modified Stableford scoring event. Putnam closed with a 22-foot birdie putt from off the front of the green on the par-5 18th when a bogey would have been enough for the breakthrough victory at Montreux Golf and Country Club.
BLAINE, Minn. — Kenny Perry won the 3M Championship one last time Sunday, closing with a 3-under 69 for a threestroke victory in the PGA Tour Champions event that is being replaced by the PGA Tour’s 3M Open. Also the 2014 and 2015 winner at TPC Twin Cities, the 57-year-old Perry matched Hale Irwin’s tournament record of three victories in the final edition of the event that started in 1993 at Bunker Hills.
LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — Georgia Hall of England reeled in longtime leader Pornanong Phatlum in a final-round duel at Royal Lytham to win the Women’s British Open for the 22-year-old’s her first major title.