In the end Justin Thomas’s main rival turned out to be the record book. One week after trouncing the field in the first US PGA Tour event of 2017, the SBS Tournament of Champions, and three days after becoming the seventh player in history to card a Tour 59, Justin Thomas headed into the final round of the Sony Open with a seven-shot lead.
No one got closer than five shots all day, his only edgy moment was a two and a half metre par putt on the sixth hole when he was five shots ahead, and he eventually closed with a five-under 65 and won by seven. Even more impressively, however, he set the lowest 72-hole score in PGA Tour history, a 253 that just beat Tommy Armour’s 254 at the 2003 Texas Open.
Twenty-three-year-old Thomas was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2009 (Buick Open and Bridgestone Invitational) to win back-to-back weeks by three shots or more; matched Ernie Els in 2003 as the only players to sweep Hawaii; and also joined Johnny Miller (1974 and 1975) and Tiger Woods (2003, 2008, 2013) as the only players since 1970 to win three of the their first five starts in a PGA Tour season. In his case, it all started last autumn with the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, and he is now number eight in the world rankings.
"It's been an unbelievable week,” he said. “Unforgettable." (Or two weeks!)
"I felt like I was trying to win a tournament for second place," said Jordan Spieth. That honour went to Justin Rose, who closed with a 64 to finish alone in second place, while Spieth was third.
