Thomas crushes Medinah with 61
Leads by 6 shots after two eagles
Justin Thomas opened with five consecutive birdies, added two eagles and shattered the course record at soft, vulnerable Medinah with an 11-under 61 to take a six-shot lead into the final round of the BMW Championship.
Thomas hit 5-wood to 2 feet for an eagle, holed out from 180 yards with an 8iron and made eight birdies to turn a tight race into a one-man show in Medinah, Ill.
“I felt good about my game for a while, and you don’t know when something like this going to happen,” Thomas said. “We’ve all been talking the last couple of weeks that I’m due to have one, and it’s nice when it happens.”
And just like that, he was alreadythinking about Sunday.
Thomas was at 21-under 195, six shots clear of Tony Finau (68) and Patrick Cantlay (67). He has a clear path to his first victory in a year, and it would give him the FedEx Cup lead going into the Tour Championship next week at East Lake outside of Atlanta.
The goal for Tiger Woods is simply to get to the Tour Championship, where last year he ended five years without winning. Woods had a bogey-free 67, his lowest score since the final round of the Memorial.
When Medinah is this much of a pushover, it didn’t help all that much. He was tied for 31st, with some 18 players ahead of where he needs to be to move into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup and advance to East Lake.
“I shoot 60, it should be all right,” Woods said, a tongue-in-cheek comment made about the time Thomas was teeing off.
Thomas had two 12-foot birdie putts, hit to 2 feet on No. 3, holed a 15-footer on No. 4 and was out of position only briefly before a fifth consecutive birdie on the par-5 fifth. But it was the back nine where he seized control.
First, he drilled a 5-wood that rolled out to 2 feet below the cup on No. 10. Ordinarily, that might have been his best shot of the day. For this round, it didn’t rate among the top three. He chipped in for birdie from a fluffy lie behind the 14th green. Understated was his pitch to the 15th after driving into the water to save par.
And then, the fireworks on a cloudy, dreary afternoon that featured a rain stoppage of just more than an hour.
From 180 yards on No. 16, he cut an 8-iron that looked all the way, landed short of the hole and rolled in. Thomas smiled and mentioned, “Brooks Koepka’s money,” to caddie Jimmy Johnson, referring to a wager Thomas has with Koepka on holing shots from over 50 yards ($1,000) and a hole in one ($5,000). That put Thomas up $7,000.
With adrenaline running high, he hit 9-iron from a forward tee and a front pin over the water to 6 feet on No. 17 for his final birdie.
“It doesn’t matter what golf course it is,” Thomas said. “You give us soft, good greens and soft fairways, we’re going to tear it apart.”
U.S. Amateur final set
John Augenstein and Andy Ogletree advanced to the U.S. Amateur final at Pinehurst in North Carolina. Augenstein beat William Holcomb V, 3 and 2, and Ogletree topped teenager and fellow Mississippian Cohen Trolio, who was bidding to become the youngest finalist in U.S. Amateur history, 3 and 1.
They will meet Sunday in a 36-hole final split over two courses, starting on the resort’s renovated No. 4 course and finishing at No. 2 — the site of three men’s U.S. Opens and the 2008 U.S. Amateur.
Augenstein, 21, of Owensboro, Ky., is a senior at Vanderbilt. Ogletree, also 21, of Little Rock, Miss., is a senior at Georgia Tech.
Champions rookie ahead
Monday qualifier Doug Barron had a one-stroke lead in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open when lightning forced the suspension of play late in the second round.
Making his second PGA Tour Champions start after turning 50 last month, Barron was 10 under for the tournament playing the par-4 15th when play was stopped at En Joie Golf Club in Endicott, N.Y.
Barron got into the field Monday with a 66 at The Links at Hiawatha Landing. He’s coming off a fifthplace tie in the Senior British Open in his Champions debut.
Scott McCarron was tied for second with Marco Dawson, Scott Parel and David McKenzie.
Pieters leads Czech
Thomas Pieters birdied the final hole for a one-shot lead at 16 under over Adria Arnaus of Spain entering the final round of the Czech Masters at the Albatross Golf Resort near Prague.