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The opening round of the Open Championship has not been kind to Justin Thomas.
The two-time major winner, at 9:48 a.m. ET, started the final men’s major of the year with a disappointing bogey, slamming into the greenside bunker off the short and right of the green with his third putt. Never mind, he bounced back a few holes later with a birdie on a par-5 to get back on par.
This four will be one of the few bright spots in a disastrous Thursday at Royal Liverpool.
Thomas missed the remaining two par 3s on the outside nine, and added a double bogey in the seventh, to make the turnover at four. But rock bottom is yet to come.
He hung on two other bogeys and a double on the back nine, with a lone birdie on the card, hitting the 18th tee seven times on the day. Needing equality just to get home in the 70’s is never a great place to be, but things were about to get a lot, a lot worst.
Thomas’ drive broke on the par-5 finisher to the right, found the inside OB hugging the fairway, and had to reload for his third shot. The second tee ball found the shortstop, but he hit his approach to the Devil’s Bowl dugout guarding the front of the green.
With almost no chance of getting the ball on the shooting surface, Thomas chose to play sideways… directly into the adjacent dugout. Left with limited options again, he played sideways in a thick bottom near the stand. He then holed his seventh putt on the green, took two putts from there and snatched his ball from the hole with an ugly four 9 on the scorecard.
“This has been a disastrous day for Justin Thomas,” analyst Paul Azinger said on USA Radio. “It’s lonely. He’s really going through something.”
Really disastrous. Thomas’ face told the whole story as he wore a look of sadness on his face as he strode from the 18th position towards the score.
Thomas’ 11-over 82 is a career-worst in the majors and is the latest in a string of disappointing plays for the 15-time PGA Tour winner this season. He has only finished inside the top 10 three times in 2023 and has yet to score a win. Even worse, in the major tournaments, he misses two cuts and finishes the T65 in his best showing.
With a disastrous 82 on the board Thursday night, Thomas is only outplaying one player on the court, while another missed an almost certain cut.
“when you have [confidence]Azinger said, “You’d never think you’d lose it.” “And when you lose it, you don’t think you’ll ever get it back.”
Golf is a tough game – Thomas’ struggles are just the latest example.