Justin Thomas scored an easy birdie on the par-5 first hole at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook on March 23, just one stroke back of the lead going into the third round of the 2024 PGA Tour Valspar Championship. Thomas then completed a 2-foot, 9-inch putt to enter the leaderboard logjam.
For JT, though, that was as good as it got because the rest of his afternoon didn’t resemble that first hole at all. JT hasn’t won since winning the 2022 PGA Championship.
During the third round, he took 38 putts in total and only holed 22 feet and 10 inches of them, although his putt on No. 1 was really the longest he made. Overall, Thomas’s putting performance was the poorest of his professional career, losing 7.034 strokes on the green, according to golf data analyst Rick Gehman.
The 30-year-old blasted an 8-over 79 to tie for the worst round of the day and fell into a tie for 66th at the 54-hole mark. Of course, such a horrible day on the greens resulted in an oversized scorecard.
Justin Thomas’s Third Round Performance at the Valspar Championship Was Disastrous
🚨🔻⛳️ From leader to T66. Justin Thomas has a rough day in Tampa with an 8-over, 79. @JTLegion_ pic.twitter.com/294k3v6MsE
— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) March 23, 2024
It didn’t take Thomas long to turn things around on the Copperhead Course after he made a birdie on the first hole.
He shot his approach to just over 26 feet at the par-4 second, rolling his first more than seven feet beyond the hole before making a three-putt for bogey. He hooked his approach ball into a greenside bunker on the par-4 third, and then he hammered his subsequent sand shot to only six feet, missing the putt and making another bogey.
He made good approaches to holes four and five, hitting them to thirteen and six feet, respectively, but was unable to make either birdie putt, having to settle for two pars instead.
Thomas again found himself in a greenside bunker on his approach at the short par-4 seventh, which was only 398 yards long. This left him with a little over 35 feet to the hole. He was left with a two-foot, three-inch putt for bogey after he blasted his third shot to just over ten feet and rolled his par effort past the hole. However, JT touched in for a double after missing that one as well.
79 today for JT with 38 total putts. Golf is hard. 🫣 pic.twitter.com/Hh9f1Q0oht
— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) March 23, 2024
After missing a four-footer on No. 8, he bogeyed the eighth and ninth holes, finishing with a 5-over 41.
Though Thomas’ back nine was marginally better, it wasn’t much better as he finished at 3-over 38 with three more bogeys and six pars. He is 13 shots behind leader Keith Mitchell going into the final round at 3-over for the week. Mitchell ties for the lowest score of the day with a 5-under 66, and he leads by two strokes going into the last 18 holes.
Following a strong start to the season, Thomas has been inconsistent recently.
Justin Thomas started 2024 on a high note after infamously missing the PGA Tour Playoffs the previous season, finishing 71st in the FedExCup standings (2022–23) (the top 70 go in) despite recording just four top-10 finishes in 21 starts.
He shot 65-67-61-68 to tie for third at The American Express in his first start of the season, trailing only winner Nick Dunlap by two strokes. A fortnight later, at Pebble Beach, he tied for sixth in a tournament that was cut short by bad weather to 54 holes. Thomas tied for 12th at the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale one more week later.
It wasn’t until June 25 at the Travelers Championship that Thomas achieved his third finish of 12th place or better in the previous season.
However, he hasn’t been quite consistent since Phoenix.
Thomas missed the weekend along with his good friend Jordan Spieth, who was disqualified at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club after signing the wrong scorecard after his second round. Thomas shot 72-73 to miss the cut by two.
But three weeks later, at the Bay Hill Arnold Palmer Invitational, he was back to his best, tying for 12th.
However, JT missed the weekend by two strokes again the following week at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, which he won in 2021. He shot 71-74. And there’s the Valspar, where, until to his difficult Round 3, he was performing admirably.
And this discrepancy has surely been exacerbated by his putting. He began the season with strong results on the greens, but according to Data Golf, he placed ninth from the bottom in strokes gained putting at the Genesis (-1.23).
Thomas relied on other areas of his game to keep himself in contention even during his T12 finish at Bay Hill, when he tied for 33rd in the same category (+0.15). Additionally, he shot a -1.69 putter ranking, ranking him 11th out of 144 players at TPC Sawgrass during The Players.
One has to wonder how Justin Thomas’ recent putting struggles would effect him at Augusta, where the flat stick is important, with The Masters quickly approaching (the year’s first major begins on April 11).
