Column: Justin Thomas trying to make his bad golf better
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The question Justin Thomas faced seven months ago was how to follow a season that featured five PGA Tour victories, his first major championship, the FedEx Cup and all the awards that go along with the best year in golf.
One solution was to avoid comparisons along the way, which was never going to be easy.
Quail Hollow presents one of those challenges.
Thomas played nine holes Tuesday with Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau and Dru Love. It was the first time he set foot on Quail Hollow since the PGA Championship, when he holed a 15-foot putt on the first hole of the final round to escape with bogey, watched a birdie putt hang on the edge of the cup at No. 10 for the longest time before dropping, chipped in for birdie on the 13th hole and hit the best shot of his life — a 7-iron on the par-3 17th — for a birdie that clinched his first major.
These are memories, and how he plays this week at the Wells Fargo Championship has no bearing on what he accomplished last summer.
Neither will anything else he does this year.
“The course is going to be playing different,” he said. “That was a major, a different time of the year.”
On the table as he spoke was his phone, the only place he keeps his goals. Thomas doesn’t share them until the season is over, and if they’re anything like a year ago, they can be as specific as being among the top 30 in scrambling and as general as making the Ryder Cup team. One objective drives him. “Make my bad golf better,” he said. The encore to last year cannot be measured because Thomas still has the more important half of the season ahead of him, which includes three majors and the FedEx Cup playoffs. But there already is proof that he is backing it up just fine.
For starters, Thomas is second in the Vardon Trophy to Dustin Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player, but maybe not for long. Thomas gets his third chance to move to No. 1 in the world this week, most likely needing around 12th place to overtake Johnson, who is not playing at Quail Hollow.
What gets Thomas even more excited are his finishes — not just the victories at the CJ Cup in South Korea last fall or the playoff he won at the Honda Classic, but the tie for 22nd at Kapalua at the start of the year. It’s his worst finish in his 10 individual events he has played. The bad golf isn’t bad at all. “I’m so much more consistent this year, which I really like,” Thomas said. “That’s what I’ve wanted to do this year. Get my bad golf better. No missed cuts. Have a chance to win more tournaments. Living around the top 10 is something Tiger did for a long time. He always had chances to win tournaments, and if he didn’t, he was always around, always on that first page of the leaderboard.”
That’s what led Thomas to believe he is playing better this year.
“I don’t have all the crazy things to go along with it,” he said.
Thomas had said he would seek advice from Woods and Jack Nicklaus, along with Jordan Spieth, on how to deal with living up to expectations after a big year. But it was a conversation he had with Nicklaus last summer before winning at Quail Hollow that had a more lasting effect.
“When I talked to Mr. Nicklaus last year, he said he adjusted his game plan according to how he was playing,” Thomas said. “I don’t know why I never thought about that, but it stuck with me. Because at the time, I wasn’t playing well. He said: ‘When you’re not playing well and you have a 6-iron, are you trying to make birdie? You probably won’t because you’re not playing well. Why wouldn’t you just hit the middle of the green?’
“I was like, ‘Why am I playing courses the same when I’m playing my best versus when I’m not playing well?’” Thomas said. “That is a big part of why I’m having success this year.”
The conversation carried into the offseason with his father, Mike Thomas. The idea was to make ordinary weeks better instead of worse. To turn 40th place into 20th place. Make the bad golf better. “If he doesn’t have a chance to win ... things irritate him more. He fires at flags he shouldn’t fire at,” Mike Thomas said. “He’s good up front. He’s not in the middle. We all sat and talked about that. It’s not that you need 5 more (FedEx Cup) points or an extra $5,000. It’s just a frame of mind. Try to always improve.” It appears to be working. Better than last year? Along with five victories, Thomas shot a 59 at the Sony Open and a 63 at the U.S. Open. Seasons like that are hard to top.
“I feel I’m capable of doing it again,” he said. “But it’s not like I’m going to have those on my refrigerator and checking them off. There are many things I want to do and can do. And like many things, I’m hoping it can happen.”
OAKLAND, Calif. — Long before tipoff, Stephen Curry swished his routine tunnel shot on the second try. Once the game began, the two-time MVP stood along the bench anxiously waiting for his turn, shaking his legs and clapping his hands with nervous energy and anticipation.
Then — mouthpiece dangling, of course — Curry finally entered at the 4:20 mark of the first quarter to a roaring ovation from the Oracle Arena crowd and immediately got to work. He knocked down a 3-pointer from the left wing 11 seconds later and was off and running in Golden State’s 121-116 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night.
“The ball swung to him and he just launched. It didn’t surprise me. That’s who he is,” coach Steve Kerr said. “That was a fun moment.”
Curry came off the bench to score 28 points in a triumphant return from a knee injury and nearly six weeks off, and the Warriors held off Anthony Davis and the pesky Pelicans to go ahead 2-0 in the Western Conference semifinals.
All is right with the Warriors again now that No. 30 is back on the floor — even as a backup.
Kevin Durant scored 29 points with a huge 3-pointer with 3:10 to play, to go with seven assists and six rebounds in Golden State’s franchise-record 14th consecutive postseason victory at Oracle Arena. Draymond Green contributed 20 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds while battling Davis on both ends all night.
Davis finished with 25 points and 15 rebounds, and Jrue Holiday had 24 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Pelicans, who also got 22 points and 12 assists from Rajon Rondo.
Andre Iguodala converted a snazzy three-point play with 6:41 left when he flipped the ball up and it came back down and through the net as he was fouled by Rondo, then Golden State pulled away.
The best-of-seven series resumes with Game 3 on Friday at New Orleans.
Curry shot 8 for 15 with five 3-pointers and grabbed seven rebounds in 27 minutes. He let it fly for a 30foot 3 in the closing minute of the third.
“He’s going to score,” New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry said.
The Warriors were focused on keeping their edge after a blowout Game 1 win.
Just the energy Curry brings helped that cause.
The whole place came alive when he made his first appearance on the floor.
“That was a special moment when Steph checked into the game,” Kerr said.
Curry had been sidelined since spraining his left knee March 23, the same day he came back from a six-game absence with a right ankle injury.
He already had a history of brilliant returns from injuries.
In late December against Memphis, Curry came back after being sidelined 11 games with a sprained right ankle to score 38 points with 10 3-pointers.
Curry returned for Game 4 of the Warriors’ five-game Western Conference semifinals against Portland two years ago and made 16 of 32 shots with five 3-pointers and scored 17 points in overtime on the way to 40 in a 132-125 victory. He grabbed nine rebounds and dished out eight assists.
The game had its testy moments.
Curry made a bounce pass in transition to Iguodala late in the third and Solomon Hill was hit with a flagrant 1 for grabbing Iguodala’s neck area as he shot. That came 14 seconds after a double-technical against Davis and Green after they got tangled and rolled around and over each other.
“I live for playoff basketball. It’s the most fun time of the year for me,” Green said.
Klay Thompson never found his groove and went 4 for 20, 2 of 11 on 3s, and scored 10 points. Iguodala scored 15.
Green drove coast to coast for a three-point play 2:08 before halftime, then Thompson banked in a 3 at the halftime buzzer for a 5855 Warriors edge at intermission.
Even a balanced Pelicans attack — they took 105 shots — with all five starters scoring in double figures wasn’t enough to stop the explosive defending champions.
REBOUNDING GREEN
Green had games of 19, 18 and 15 rebounds the previous three games and a triple-double in Game 1 — then was one board shy of another.
“He’s been saving himself for the playoffs,” Kerr said after the game.
QUOTEABLE
“It was a lot more fun when I was over there,” Gentry joked of preparing for the Warriors, referring to his time as Golden State’s top assistant during the franchise’s 2014-15 championship season.