Thomas regaining strength, wins opener
World’s No. 2 player beat List on first day of WGCMatch Play tournament
AUSTIN – Justin Thomas has had some testy battles of late.
Two weeks ago, he was down for the count after his wisdom teeth were pulled. About a week later, a bout with strep throat nearly knocked him out again. And on Wednesday in the first day of pool play in the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, a slightly-under-theweather Thomas went toe-to-toe in a spirited tussle with Luke List, who put up a good fight despite putting with a wedge for the last 11 holes.
But Thomas is looking just fine after the trio of confrontations.
The world No. 2 held on for a 2-up victory over List at sunbaked Austin Country Club and announced himself 90% fit heading into the second day of play. It was his first competitive round since losing to Phil Mickelson in a playoff March 4 in the WGC-Mexico Championship.
“My strength is back,” Thomas said. “It doesn’t hurt terribly to drink water or do anything like that. I’m just hoping it keeps getting better every day.”
Some of the biggest names in golf are hoping for better days. Defending champion and world No. 1 Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy, who won last weekend’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, dropped their opening matches. Phil Mickelson also dropped his match to Charles Howell III 3 and 2. Last year only three players who lost their opening match advanced out of pool play.
Johnson lost the last three holes to fall 3 and 1 to Bernd Wiesberger, while McIlroy, despite making five birdies in a row on the back nine, lost 2 and 1 to Peter Uihlein.
“Obviously, it wasn’t his best day,” Wiesberger said. “It wasn’t the best of my days. I think we both have to do a little bit of work.”
Thomas has to work on putting some weight back on.
Already on the thin side, he lost about 10-12 pounds after his wisdom teeth were pulled and he dealt with strep throat.
His food options have been limited — he said he’s sick of soup, his love for mac and cheese was tested after eating so much of it, and he could do without Jell-O and apple sauce for a while — and he’s slowly putting weight back on.
But he’s still a powerful force with a golf club in his hands.
And he’s a tad more confident after winning just his second match in three years in this competition.
He said he just didn’t play well the last two years. But he’s now a more complete and confident golfer after his fivewin 2017, when he won his first major ti- tle at the PGA Championship and was named the PGA Tour player of the year. This season, he has two victories.
“I feel a lot better about my game and my mental game,” he said.
One of his victories came in the Honda Classic, where he beat List in a playoff. In their rematch, Thomas jumped out to a 3-up lead after seven holes and then watched List come back after he started putting with a wedge.
List was a bit under the weather himself, and in a bit of frustration on the sixth hole he whacked a bush with his putter. Trouble was, the bush was a wall and the putter bent, forcing him to take it out of play.
But he came back to win the 13th, 15th and 16th holes to pull within one but lost the last hole when Thomas hit a superb bunker shot to 3 feet.
“Stupid on my part,” List said of his putter incident.
Thomas is still trying to wrap his head around playing the pool portion of the tournament, where four players are put in a pool and each plays the others the first three days and the best record advances.
“Match play is brutal,” Thomas said. “It is. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just weird with this pod play, because my match means something and I won. But I’m still not guaranteed to get through my pod. I think that’s something I had a hard time dealing with the last two years. I feel like I’m watching the other match in my pod as opposed to worrying about my match.
“I’m thinking about what they’re doing as opposed to what I’m doing. It needs to be the other way around.”