NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
One of the ongoing equipment stories of the year runs parallel with the ongoing saga of Justin Thomas’ quest to win again.
It’s been 30 months since JT won his second major and 15th career PGA Tour event at the 2022 PGA Championship. His game hit rocky shoals in 2023 as he missed the FedEx Cup playoffs and he fell from the top 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he bounced back with nine top-10s including a seventh in 72-hole scoring at the Tour Championship in August.
Along the way he’s seemingly had about as many putter changes, as his search for some magic on the greens has included many twists and turns along the route including a road trip for a gas station hookup with amateur Gordon Sargent to pick up a custom Scotty Cameron blade putter which the Vanderbilt golfer wasn’t using.
The journey has delivered promising boosts and familiar stumbles along the way as he ultimately still languished at No. 167 in strokes gained putting on tour in 2024. After a nearly two-month break since the Tour Championship, Thomas showed up for the Zozo Championship in Japan with an old friend in his bag – his Scotty Cameron X5 Tour dual-winged mallet putter.
Thomas used the X5 Tour off and on through the years, including prominent victories at the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and 2021 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. But this year Thomas switched to a prototype Scotty Cameron T5 before the Masters and then a version of Sargent’s blade putter at the Memorial. By the time he got to Scotland before the Open Championship, he switched to a Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.2 Tour prototype mallet that lasted through the FedEx Cup playoffs.
But the original X5 Tour mallet with which he began 2024 returned for what might turn out to be JT’s last start of the year at the Zozo. (Thomas and his wife, Jillian, are expecting their first child this fall, which has kept him so far from committing to play the Hero World Challenge in December.)
The reunion on the greens nearly worked. Thomas finished tied for second by one measly stroke to Colombia’s Nico Echavarria in Japan (whose big change himself was to a SuperStroke putter grip that helped him lead the field in strokes gained putting after the first round and finish eighth for the week). That’s partly because the putter let Thomas down on Sunday as he lost strokes to the field for the first time all week, ranking 66th of the 77 players in the final round with only 44 cumulative feet of putts made in a bogey-free 4-under 66. After making three birdies in the first six holes Sunday, he failed to convert another until the par-5 18th. He missed birdie chances from 7, 7, 8, 12, 12 and 15 feet in that 11-hole string of pars.
Thomas led the field in strokes gained approach and made only one bogey all week, but he simply couldn’t coax enough putts to drop.
“I played plenty well enough to win the tournament. Hit so many good putts today that just didn’t go in; that’s the difference,” he said. “I needed some of those ones that burned the edge to fall. But no, I mean, I gave myself a chance. I would have really loved that [19-foot] putt on 17 to fall just to be tied for the lead.”
If he tightens up his putting stats, the rest of his game is strong enough to snap his 2½-year drought when 2025 commences.
“It’s hard to win at any stage; doesn’t matter who you are,” Thomas said. “If you’re fortunate enough to have a couple hot streaks in your career, whatever it may be, it can not only seem or look easier to yourself but everybody else as well. At the end of the day, it has been a while. But I’ve still won a pretty good amount of golf tournaments. I know how to win. … I have a lot of faith in myself and my game.”
That faith needs to carry into his reunion with his old putter if Thomas hopes to rekindle his winning mojo.
Scott Michaux