Xander Schauffele with 2 clutch putts gives US gold in gold

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MEDINAH, Ill. – Justin Thomas was already nervous. He had probably lingered too long on his phone, reading the good-luck and you-got-this texts from well-wishers who assumed that closing out a six-shot lead on Sunday is a mere formality. JT hadn’t even arrived at the course yet for his final round at the BMW Championship. When he did, some friendly advice was waiting for him from the locker room attendants at Medinah, who evidently decided that a guy who’s won a FedExCup, a major, and multiple PGA TOUR events needed help on how to close out a tournament. OK, it has been a year since Thomas has won. People like him and want him to succeed. But still … Their advice? Talk to your caddie. A lot. Make sure you keep talking. “OK, as long as you stop talking, it’s fine with me,â€� JT thought to himself. Thomas knows all too well that large leads do not come with guarantees. Sure, six-shot leads seem safe – since 1928, just seven 54-hole leaders in PGA TOUR history have lost such a lofty lead. But Thomas remembered the 2017 Sentry Tournament of Champions, when he led by five shots after 13 holes but saw it whittled to one by Hideki Matsuyama before JT closed it out. Matsuyama was at it again on Sunday, going out in 5-under 31 en route to his second 63 of the week. Matsuyama’s first 63, on Friday, had set the course record – one that lasted for 24 hours until Thomas eclipsed it with a magnificent 61 on Saturday that set him up with the huge advantage. Matsuyama was too far away from posing any real threat, but one of Thomas’ playing partners, future Presidents Cup teammate Patrick Cantlay, was offering some high heat. When Cantlay produced his fourth consecutive birdie at the par-5 10th while Thomas bogeyed the hole after an errant second shot with a 3-wood – “Just a bad shot,â€� JT said – the lead was reduced to two shots. Related: Leaderboard | What’s in Thomas’s bag? | FedExCup standings | Meet the top 30 | How it works: TOUR Championship Cantlay had the momentum. “I knew I had to make birdies,â€� he said. But that’s when Thomas flipped the switch. The game was officially on – and that got the competitive juices flowing. In fact, his nervousness to start the day with a six-shot lead was now replaced with the bravado and fearlessness of a closer. “If I have a two-shot lead with eight holes left,â€� Thomas said, “I feel confident I can pull it off.â€� Thomas responded at the par-4 11th by hitting an approach shot from 106 yards to 2 feet. Birdie. Lead now three shots. An errant drive on the next hole posed trouble, but Thomas saved par by rolling in a 14-foot putt. Then, after Cantlay rolled in a birdie putt at the par-3 13th from 15 feet, Thomas responded with his own birdie from inside 12 feet. They matched birdies again at the par-4 15th, before Cantlay finally flinched on the next hole with a bogey. With a four-shot lead and two to play, JT was safely home. “I needed to make any of the putts on 12, 14 or 15 if I really wanted to get some momentum on my side,â€� Cantlay said. “Seemed like him saving par on 12 was big. Then obviously I tried to get one back on 13, and then he made it on top of me. “So he just played really well. It was going to be hard for me to get to 25 under anyway.â€� Indeed, that’s where Thomas ended up, just three shots off the tournament scoring record on a course that normally offers more resistance. In the end, Thomas needed the pressure of being pushed so that he could offer the proper – and winning – response. “It’s always easy when things are going well,â€� Thomas said. “When your back is up against the wall or when you get pressured or put a little heat on you, I think how you respond is sometimes a little bit better or show a little bit more.â€� OK, so talking about leads … in winning the BMW Championship, Thomas now moves to No. 1 in FedExCup points. Under the new Starting Strokes format that will be used at the TOUR Championship, Thomas will start the tournament at 10 under. He’ll lead No. 2 Patrick Cantlay by two strokes, No. 3 Brooks Koepka by three shots, and so on, with the back end of the field 10 shots behind. “I can certainly say 1000% I never slept on a Wednesday lead,â€� joked Thomas. But he knows the opportunity is immense. He’s already won one FedExCup, back in 2017 when he won five times and established himself as one of the world’s top golfers. Only Tiger Woods has won multiple FedExCups. Thomas is in the driver’s seat to join him. Just like six-shot leads on Sunday, though, there will be no guarantees at East Lake. Thomas is taking nothing for granted. Never in his golfing career, even as a junior, has he been given strokes before a tournament.  It will be a different format, but the mindset remains the same. Close it out. “There’s nobody in the history of this sport that has experienced it, so nobody knows,â€� Thomas said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be weird. It’s going to be different, I know that. “I know that I’m in a lot better position than I was at the start of the week. I just have to be grateful and thankful for that.â€� More thankful, no doubt, than any locker room advice he may receive the next few days. Don’t worry about JT – he still knows how to win.

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LOS ANGELES — The guy who grew up 40 miles away, first played Riviera as a teenager and was out of golf with a bad back returned Thursday and shared the lead at the Genesis Open. That would be Patrick Cantlay, not Tiger Woods. And the biggest difference was that hardly anyone saw it. Cantlay, the No. 1 amateur in the world when he was at UCLA, birdied all the par 5s and kept it smart the rest of the way around a firm Riviera course for a 5-under 66 to share the lead with Tony Finau. Woods, who grew up in Cypress and made his PGA TOUR debut at Riviera when he was 16, played this event for the first time in 12 years. He lost a tee shot in a eucalyptus tree and made double bogey as part of a rugged start, and then settled in with a series of key putts for a 72. Finau started with four birdies in five holes and finished with one last birdie for his 66. An unusually large crowd for Thursday at Riviera was out early to watch Woods, with fans standing six-deep around some of the greens. There still were not enough people to help locate his tee shot on the par-5 11th hole, presumably swallowed up by the tree. Woods is playing Riviera for the ninth time as a pro, the most of any PGA TOUR course without ever winning. His expectations are tempered now at age 42 and returning from his fourth back surgery. His game isn’t sharp, though it’s moving in the right direction. He made five birdies despite hitting only seven greens in regulation, and he recovered from being 2-over after three holes. “I’m not that far off to really putting some good numbers out there,” Woods said. “I’ve got to clean up my card — too many bogeys out there. If I can just clean that up, I can start making my way up the board.” Cantlay played with Jordan Spieth (71) and fellow UCLA alum Kevin Chappell (69), and as they finished in the twilight, the crowd had thinned considerably. They missed a clean round by Cantlay, whose only bogey came on the par-3 fourth hole when he came up short of the green and missed a 10-foot putt. Otherwise, he was smart, simple and confident. “I’m pretty familiar with the golf course, and you’ve just got to hit a lot of smart shots over and over and over again, and not get too greedy,” Cantlay said. He can’t remember how many rounds he has played at Riviera. The Bruins typically played at Bel-Air on Tuesday and Thursday, and Riviera about once a month. “I feel very familiar with the lines on the golf course, and it’s one of my favorite golf courses,” he said. “I think the architecture out here is definitely one of the best we play all year. I think it rewards really smart, safe golf a lot. I say safe, but just picking your spots, not trying to get overly aggressive.” He was a little aggressive, intentionally or not, with a 9-iron in the 13th that was left of the flag on a green that moves to the left. He holed a 15-foot birdie putt, and a small clan of Bruins-clad fans broke into a cheer, “U-C-L-A, UCLA fight, fight, fight!” Cantlay smiled walking off the green. Defending champion Dustin Johnson got off to a rough start, particularly on No. 5. He played his third shot from ankle-high grass and it flew over the green. His chip came back down the slope and the world’s No. 1 player walked off with a triple bogey. Johnson wound up with a 74. Sam Saunders, who last year started with a 64, was among three players at 67. Bubba Watson was in the group at 68. Twelve players did not finish the round before darkness. Woods played with Justin Thomas (69) and Rory McIlroy (71). They had the largest gallery of the day, most of them to see Woods, who had not played at Riviera since 2006. It was never hard to figure out where Woods was on the golf course, and that was particularly true for Saunders. He was teeing off on the par-3 fourth when he looked down the hill at Woods playing the 18th. “I looked over and watched because I grew up watching Tiger do what he did,” Saunders said. “And I’m a big fan like we all are out here and it’s really cool to see him out and we all want him to be out here every week and playing well. It just brings a different buzz to the tournament and it’s really good for the game of golf, so it’s cool for me to be playing in a tournament that he’s playing in and be able to compete against him, a guy that I grew up just in awe of basically.” Saunders knows all about the energy one player can bring to a tournament. He heard plenty of stories about his grandfather, Arnold Palmer, who first brought the masses to golf more than a half-century ago. “I think that’s why I have so much respect for what he did and admire his career so much, because I didn’t get to see my grandfather’s firsthand like I got to see Tiger’s growing up watching TV,” Saunders said. “I know there’s a lot of parallels there.”

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