DeChambeau, Uihlein share lead after Round 3 at Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Justin Thomas found the right time for a near-perfect performance to put a rough start to the year behind him, rallying from three shots behind with bold play to close with a 4-under 68 and win THE PLAYERS Championship on Sunday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Justin Thomas, THE PLAYERS Championship Thomas becomes only the fourth player to win a major, THE PLAYERS Championship, the FedExCup and a World Golf Championships, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. He called it as good as he has ever played tee-to-green, and he needed it to outlast Lee Westwood, a hard-luck runner-up for the second straight week. Westwood birdied the final hole for a 72 to finish one shot behind. Thomas went birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie around the turn, and put away Westwood for good with a pair of lag putts from 50 feet — one for birdie on the par-5 16th to take the lead, another on the island-green 17th for a par. Thomas still had one more shot before he was in the clear. He took on the water framing the left side of the 18th fairway, the ball moving right-to-left and bouncing straight off the crown of the first cut, safely in the fairway. His approach landed on the fringe — the first green he missed all day — leaving a simple two-putt for par and the 14th victory of his PGA TOUR career. “I fought so hard today,” Thomas said. “It’s probably one of the best rounds of my life tee-to-green. I’ve seen some crazy stuff happen on TV in the past, and I’m glad to be on this side of it.” All the crazy stuff came early. Bryson DeChambeau, coming off a win last week at Bay Hill, topped an iron off the tee on the par-4 fourth hole that went only about 140 yards until it plunked into the water. From 237 yards on a forward tee to a green protected by water, he hit a slice with a 5-iron some 40 yards right of the green. “Dude! I don’t know what happened!” he said to his caddie. “I’ve never done that before.” DeChambeau made double bogey and was scratching the rest of the way to stay in the game. He still had a chance with an eagle on the 16th hole to get within two, but when Thomas made par on the 17th, his chances were about over. DeChambeau shot 71 and tied for third with Brian Harman, who had a 69 and played the final 12 holes without a bogey. The 47-year-old Westwood hit his tee shot into the water on the fourth hole and had to make an 8-footer to save bogey. He hit his approach out of the pine straw that clipped two branches and found water on the par-5 second hole to make bogey. He was never far away from the lead, and Westwood regained a share of the lead with an 8-foot birdie putt on the 14th. His chances began to slip away with his second shot into the par-5 16th. It hit a big oak and dropped into the sand, and his third shot found a bunker in front of the green. Instead of matching birdies with Thomas, who was in the group ahead, Westwood had to scramble for par to stay one behind. And on the 17th, his long birdie attempt rolled 7 feet by the hole. He faced another crucial par putt, and he finally missed. Thomas was outside the cut line after nine holes on Friday. He followed that with a 64 on Saturday to get in the mix, and he finished off in style to pick up $2.7 million with a win against the strongest and deepest field in golf. It wrapped up a year in which the PGA TOUR shut down after one round of THE PLAYERS a year ago. Thomas was among those serving on the Player Advisory Council that was a part in getting golf back from the COVID-19 pandemic. He looked at the gold trophy with Commissioner Jay Monahan to soak in how far golf had come in a year.

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Nicholas Thompson was on daddy duty, playing with his two young children, when the text messages started arriving last Wednesday. Had he heard? Did he know there had been a shooting at his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, that afternoon? Stunned, Thompson turned on the TV. The news video of those terrified teens running out of the buildings with their hands over their heads was haunting. The death toll was staggering. “I was beyond shocked,â€� Thompson recalls. The rest of the afternoon, Thompson and his wife, Christen, who, like her husband, is a 2001 MSD graduate, took turns watching the non-stop TV coverage or playing with the kids. They wanted to shield the oldest, who is 4, from the terrible news. “But pretty much everything that was published online, I read about it,â€� says Thompson, who grew up and lived about 5 miles from the school for nearly three decades. So once the children were asleep that night, Nicholas and Christen  finally were able to process what had happened. And they knew they had to do something. The Honda Classic, which is being played this week at PGA National in West Palm Beach just minutes from their home, offered the perfect opportunity. So the PGA TOUR veteran talked with executive director Ken Kennerly and a plan was hatched. The tournament is providing maroon ribbons for its 1,600 volunteers to wear to show support for the victims. Thompson and his wife bought another 500 — maroon and silver with the letters MSD on them – for the players, caddies and wives. On Thursday, less than 24 hours after the shooting, Thompson also ordered 3,100 maroon rubber bracelets with the words “Eagle Pride #MSD Strongâ€� written in silver. He plans to distribute them at the tournament in exchange for donations to help the victims and their families. Thompson has also set up a GoFundMe page – the Support MSD Shooting Victims’ Fund – that funnels any money raised into the Stoneman Douglas Victims Fund page. The Broward Educational Foundation fund already has raised more than $1.8 million. Stoneman Douglas graduates, like Thompson, nationwide have embarked on similar projects – not just to raise money but also to effect change. There’s even a private Facebook page called Mobilizing MSD Alumni that was created Wednesday after the shootings and already has more than 10,000 members. “There are people doing t-shirts, there are people doing decals for cars, other people doing different types of wristbands,â€� Thompson says. “Everybody’s just trying to help as much as they can. They’re doing a like town hall, things with CNN, a concert, just everything to help not only raise money and funds but to get awareness out of what occurred and how people feel and all of that.â€�  Thompson doubts many of his friends on TOUR know he graduated from Stoneman Douglas. (His sister, Lexi, a nine-time winner on the LPGA Tour, and brother, Curtis, who competes on the Web.com Tour, both were home-schooled.) He actually went to school with one of the shooting victims, football coach Aaron Feis. The 37-year-old Feis, who was one of 17 killed that afternoon, died trying to shield students from the gunman. “I didn’t 100 percent know him, but we had plenty of mutual friends,â€� says Thompson, who was two years behind Feis in high school. “And I knew of him.â€� The building, which housed the freshman class, where the shooting occurred wasn’t there when Thompson attended MSD. But he remembers when it was built, and the other views from campus broadcast nationwide over the past week brought back vivid memories. “I’m not much of a crier, but it was a very, very sad moment,â€� Thompson says. “To see on TV, the pictures of the school that I went through for four years and the area where it occurred was terrible.â€� Thompson now lives about 45 minutes away from Parkland where MSD is located. While he had hoped to be playing in The Honda Classic in his backyard this week – Thompson fell short in Monday qualifying – he has new purpose for the week. “Now I’ll be able to help out more with this,â€� Thompson says. The excitement in his voice is palpable and the sense of purpose strong. Just like all the teenagers at his alma mater who are trying to turn this tragedy into something positive, too.

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