OAKMONT, Pa. — Of all the inspired golf rounds Justin Thomas has played in his professional career, one of his greatest, in his estimation, came in the second round of the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club.
He shot 69.
That’s not a typo. That’s a six and a nine.
Thomas is the author of several course records on the PGA Tour, including a 59 at Waialae Country Club in the 2017 Sony Open in Hawaii. He tied the then-championship record that same year at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills with a third-round 63. No one shot lower than Thomas’ opening 65 at the 2020 U.S. Open at wearying Winged Foot (though Matthew Wolff equaled it in round three).
More recently, check out that ridiculous 62 in the second round of this year’s Players Championship after an opening 78. That performance tied Tom Hoge’s course record. Thomas has 25 rounds of 63 or lower in his career.
And, yet, he was moved to say Monday at Oakmont that, “one of the best rounds of golf I’ve probably ever played in my career [was] in 2016 here on Friday.”
He wasn’t perfect that day. He wasn’t a machine hitting fairways and greens, as one needs to do in the U.S. Open, especially a U.S. Open at Oakmont. He wasn’t, in fact, even merely average with his ball striking.
“I think I hit four fairways, but I remember I hit seven greens, and I shot 69,” Thomas, 32, recalled. “I chipped in three times. I was beyond exhausted when I got done. I actually played with Brooks [Koepka] the first two days. I remember he was so pissed off. He just couldn’t get over it.”
Koepka probably was ticked off because he also shot 69 that day, likely with a more conventional effort. But he apparently got over it eventually, going on to win the next two U.S. Opens to become the first back-to-back champion since Curtis Strange in 1989.
“I shoot 69 every day, I’ll take four fairways and seven greens right now,” Thomas added.
Andy Lyons
Thomas has two top-10 finishes in 10 U.S. Open appearances, but the Kentucky native has missed the cut the last two years. It’s unlikely he or anyone else will be sticking around for the weekend finding four fairways this week in the 125th U.S. Open. The rough is as thick and uncompromising as any found at the Open in recent years.
Ranked fifth in the world, Thomas, a winner in April at the RBC Heritage, isn’t planning to try to recreate that bit of magic from nine years ago. But while some players might lament a setup with corridors framed by penal growth, Thomas is embracing what will largely be hack-out rough.
“I’m fine with it. I don’t know. I understand the strategy aspect that people are like, well, it doesn’t require any thought. You just take a lob wedge and hack it out,” he said. “To me it’s like, well, at the same time, that just puts even more of a priority on hitting the ball straight, which I would think is going to lessen the chances of guys just pulling driver out of their bag and sending it as far as they can every hole.”
There’s risk involved in that. He saw that first-hand playing nine holes Monday morning with Jordan Spieth and amateur Jackson Koivun, a rising junior at Auburn University. And it reinforced the notion that it won’t be easy scoring from the cabbage. But there also might be some opportunities, too. Maybe not an opportunity to shoot 69, but opportunities, nonetheless.
“Jackson had a lie on 15 today that we were kind of thinking, is it a 6-iron? Open up a 6, or could you hit 7? He tried to hit 6-iron, and it looked like he could, and he hit it like four feet in front of him,” Thomas said with a grin. “It’s not like every time you hit it in the rough, you’re grabbing lob wedge and hit it out. You have to think, how far can I hit this? These guys, we’re going to get luck. A lot of people walking in the rough, you’re going to get some lies that are decent, but you’re going to have some tempting lies that … guys might try to push the envelope when they shouldn’t, [that] kind of thing.”
Pushing the envelope is something at which Thomas has been quite good. But it’s a good bet he’d prefer a week of more conventional U.S. Open play.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com