Schauffele earns fourth win in past 12 months

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TULSA, Okla. – Justin Thomas was in crisis mode earlier this week. His shots weren’t finding the sweet spot, he didn’t feel comfortable over the ball and he was unsure of the solution. Even his father, Mike, wasn’t exempt from his frustration. RELATED: The fabulous dad life of Mike Thomas | Tracing JT’s golfing roots “I have to remind him sometimes, you’re not my dad out here, you’re my swing coach, and I need you to tell me if something is wrong,” Justin said. “I don’t need my ego boosted. I’m here to try to win a golf tournament and play well.” Mike prefers to keep things simple and focus on the fundamentals. A couple days before the year’s second major wasn’t a time to break out the camera or experiment with theories. It was time to go back to the basics. Mike turned his son’s focus away from positions and told Justin to focus on one of his favorite parts of the game, his ability to shape the ball. In an analytical age, Mike wanted his son to engage his right brain. “He was like, well, let’s just start trying to hit some shots,” Justin said. Hitting it high and low, curving it both ways, through what Tiger Woods refers to as the nine windows (think every combination of height and shot shape). That did the trick. Shots started flying off the center of the clubface and Justin’s confidence returned. The high winds blowing across Southern Hills’ wide fairways gave him the opportunity to take his shot-shaping acumen from the range to the course. It showed on Thomas’ final hole Friday, a satisfying birdie that started with a low, slicing drive into the uphill fairway, followed by a wedge shot nestled below the hole on the severely-tilted green. His other birdie on his back nine came after a 6-iron from 217 yards that Thomas hit to 20 feet despite a strong crosswind. “Just being as windy as it was, it was a lot of manipulating and different shots,” said Thomas, who hit 16 greens Friday en route to his second consecutive 67. He’s made just one bogey in his last 27 holes and only three all week. He was by far the best performer among the half of the field that teed off late Thursday and early Friday, facing the day’s highest winds both days. He was three shots better than the next-best performer from that side of the draw, Matt Fitzpatrick. Only three other players broke par from that half of the field: Talor Gooch, Joaquin Niemann and Bernd Wiesberger, and they all were 1 under. Seeking his first major in five years, Thomas took a slightly different approach this week. He teed it up the week prior, playing the AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas. That allowed him to make a quick scouting trip up to Southern Hills. “I loved it as soon as I saw it,” he said. Southern Hills’ renovation, which has drastically altered the appearance of this Perry Maxwell classic, has been one of the big storylines this week. The wide fairways give players room to work the ball, a skill that’s even more important in the conditions players have faced this week. The strong wind blows across most of the holes, requiring some sort of curvature to keep the ball from being blown off-target. Thomas is seeking his first win since another victory where his ballstriking skill was on display, last year’s PLAYERS Championship. He played low, hooking tee shots and towering long-irons during a weekend where he had full command of his swing. He hasn’t won since, but still ranks 15th in the FedExCup thanks to seven top-10s in 12 starts this season. That includes a fifth-place finish last week and a top-10 at the Masters after a disastrous first round where his inability to focus cost him an opportunity to command. He followed that 76 by playing the next three rounds in 5 under par, however. This time, Thomas kept fighting in the first round and didn’t let his chances at victory end before they began. Thomas already owns one PGA Championship, having won five years ago at Quail Hollow, but his major record since has been rather paltry. He only has four top-10s in majors since that win, and none better than a fourth-place finish at the 2020 Masters. “It’s golf, so it’s pretty hard sometimes,” he said Friday. “We’re halfway through so it’s still a long way from home, but I’m very, very pleased with where everything is at and the frame of mind and state of mind that I’m in.” He’s come a long way since the start of the week.

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Bubba Watson shoots a final-round 63 to come from six back and capture his third Travelers Championship (2010, ’15) by three over 54-hole leader Paul Casey (72), J.B. Holmes (67), Stewart Cink (62) and Beau Hossler (66). Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Watson, 39, became the first player to collect his third win of the season on the PGA TOUR. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1 Watson is enjoying a career year. Threes were wild for the winner, whose third victory of the season and third at TPC River Highlands moved him to third in the FedExCup. “Earlier this year I had … my third win in L.A.,â€� Watson said. “Now I just need one more in Augusta and that would be great. Get a different jacket. I like this jacket, don’t get me wrong. I love this. I’ve got a few of them. “But, yeah, there are certain places that we’ve built our schedule,â€� he continued. “Everybody builds their schedule around places they’ve seen, loved, the atmosphere, all of that comes into play. Around here there are a lot of driver holes where I can hit some drivers and shape it.â€� 2 This, after enduring one of his worst. Was it just last year that the popular, long-hitting left-hander was searching for answers? It sure doesn’t seem like it. Watson says he lost around 25 pounds with an undisclosed illness, a period in which he lost energy and mental focus, and began to feel sorry for himself. Better health and a return to familiar equipment were crucial in making his way back, but so was the purchase of a Prevost bus with which he could travel the TOUR with his wife, Angie, and their kids, Caleb and Dakota. They parked the bus next to runner-up J.B. Holmes for Travelers week, and the kids played with one of their best friends on TOUR, Holmes’ golden doodle, Ace. “Caleb and the kids love playing with Ace,â€� Watson said. “(Caleb) said, ‘I’m pulling for J.B.’ I said, ‘Because of his dog or because of J.B.?’ And he didn’t answer. But I think it’s because of his dog.â€� 3 Cink isn’t slowing down. He’s 45 and hasn’t won on TOUR since the 2009 Open Championship, but two-time Travelers winner Stewart Cink’s T2, his best result since Turnberry, was a big step in the right direction. In fact, Cink had visions of not only winning but going into the exalted sub-60 territory. “It did creep into my mind after I birdied 15,â€� Cink said. “I had three holes left to go, and I knew I needed three birdies to shoot 59. But quickly I remembered the golf tournament was on the line. And it would mean a lot more to me to win the Travelers Championship than to shoot a 59. Scores don’t matter as much as winning does. “So I thought about it,â€� he added, “and quickly gathered myself and hit it over the green and bogeyed.â€� Cink said he was surprised by how quickly his recent putting fixes have paid off, and calmed by the presence of his wife, Lisa, and his final-round playing partner, friend Charley Hoffman. “I had a really good heart of gratitude today before the round,â€� Cink said. “I just felt really calm about today.â€� 4 Casey’s solid year continues. Paul Casey, who won the Valspar Championship earlier this season, continues to enjoy a solid season despite a bittersweet ending at the Travelers. On the plus side, his T2 was his third top-five finish in his previous three starts at TPC River Highlands. It represented the 53rd top-10 finish of his career, and moved him up to 12th in the FedExCup. Also, despite waking up with a stiff neck and not feeling like himself, he remained in contention until the bitter end. On the minus side, he didn’t win, and his lost four-stroke lead entering the final round was the largest on TOUR since Dustin Johnson failed to convert a six-shot lead at the 2017 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. “There was a lot of fight in there,â€� Casey said. “I fought my golf swing all day. You can see coming down the last couple of holes, hitting the pull 8-iron on 16, and the flair right on 17 just about summed it up. Yeah, incredibly frustrating.â€� 5 Chase Seiffert is the second straight feel-good story out of Florida State. For the second straight year, Seiffert, a college teammate of U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka’s at FSU, Monday-qualified for the Travelers. And for the second straight year, Seiffert contended. The big difference: A year after he faded to a T43 finish, Seiffert fired a final-round 64 to finish T9, getting him into the A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier field in two weeks. “I was going in today and treating it like my Monday qualifier for The Greenbrier,â€� Seiffert said. “So, I went out and had a nice warm-up session, felt really calm all the way through the round, I was fortunate enough to pitch in two times on the front and keep it rolling after that. “It feels really good,â€� he added. “I feel like my game’s good enough to be out here full-time and kind of confirms that with the way I’ve been playing this week and last year here as well.â€� Seiffert becomes the fourth Monday qualifier to finish in the top-10 this season, joining Scott Strohmeyer (T4/Sanderson Farms Championship), Trey Mullinax (T8/Valspar Championship) and Julian Suri (T8/Houston Open). He also beat Koepka (65, T19). The last Monday qualifier to win was Arjun Atwal at the 2010 Wyndham Championship. FIVE INSIGHTS 1 Watson’s 24 putts in the final round was easily his best effort of the week. (He took 30 putts in the first and third rounds, and 28 in the second.) And while the 63 when he was at his best on the greens was crucial, he also won in part because he limited the damage when he was at his worst off the tee; he hit just 5 of 14 fairways but salvaged an even-par 70 in the first round. 2 Of his 11 stroke-play victories, Watson has come from behind in the final round seven times. His six-shot comeback Sunday matched his effort at the 2010 Travelers, when he picked up his first win in a playoff with Corey Pavin and Scott Verplank, and marked the 14th time in 33 chances that a TOUR winner has come from behind in the final round this season. 3 The biggest comeback at the Travelers was by Brad Faxon, who was seven back and won in 2005, while the late Billy Casper is still the gold standard overall. Buffalo Bill collected four wins, in ’63, ’65, ’68 and ’73, a mark that may be in jeopardy. Watson, at 39, would seem to have plenty of time left to tie Casper with a fourth Travelers victory, and go ahead with a fifth. 4 Cink tied his career low with a 10-birdie 62 in the final round, during which he took just 22 putts, six fewer than he did in any other round. He was making his 559th start on TOUR; only five other current players have more. He moved up to 72nd in the FedExCup. 5 The week’s biggest surprise might have been J.B. Holmes’ T2, which represented the fifth runner-up finish of his career. In five previous starts at TPC River Highlands, Holmes had finished no better than T37 (2012). He moved up to 50th in the FedExCup.

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