Justin Thomas has owned Club de Golf Chapultepec in his three appearances at the WGC-Mexico Championship, but there’s just one problem: he hasn’t won the event. In 2017 he finished T-5, then followed with a runner-up finish to Phil Mickelson in 2018. Last year, he finished solo ninth. He’s had his chances.
He’ll get another great chance on Sunday in Mexico City, where through 54 holes he sits at 15-under 198. The former US PGA champion shot a six-under 65 on Saturday to grab the solo lead.
“Yeah, I feel like I played pretty well,” said Thomas, who made eight birdies and two bogeys, one of which came on his opening hole and one that came on the 18th. “I mean, all day – very poor on 1, I didn’t hit a good shot, so I didn’t really deserve to make a par there, but my only other bogey on 18, I just kind of pushed the tee shot, but from there I hit three good shots after that, just nothing worked out. But I played a lot of really, really solid good golf throughout the middle of the day and made some good putts when I needed to and hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in, as well. Definitely a lot more moves than negatives.”
Thomas has improved each day, shooting rounds of 67, 66 and 65. In 15 career rounds at Chapultepec, he’s 51-under par.
“This place can play so different that you kind of have to take each day for what it is. You get a day like Thursday, and a couple under goes a long way. But then the golf course was set up the last two days with some pins that you could make a lot of birdies. You know, I felt like you just kind of get it in play or get it on the correct sides of the holes, then you can make a lot of birdies, and I was able to do that making some putts, but didn’t really do anything too crazy out there.”
Thomas began the day two back of Bryson DeChambeau, who started his round birdie-eagle and was poised to run away with the tournament. But a double-bogey at the par-5 sixth crushed his momentum, and he wound up finishing with a even-par 71, putting him four shots back of Thomas heading into Sunday.
One back are Patrick Reed and Erik van Rooyen, who each shot four-under 67s. Jon Rahm, who made a hole-in-one at the par-3 17th, shot a course-record 61 and is tied for fourth at 11 under with DeChambeau and Rory McIroy.
