Winners’ Circle

“I really don’t know how I won. I got very fortunate”

Justin Thomas won his 12th PGA Tour title at the Sentry Tournament of Champions despite bogeying two of the last three holes in regulation

They say that you can learn more from a loss than a win, but this feels like a win that you’ll take a lot away from. Is that the case? You should take something from every round, but yeah, it was just such a bizarre way for it to fi nish. There’s something about this place –I seem to have the tournament pretty well under control and then I hit it in a hazard. I truly felt like through 15 holes it was one of the best rounds I had played. I was in such control tee to green. I was putting it beautifully, my irons were awesome. I hit a really good drive on the 16th, just the wind took it, and then 18 was just a disaster. I really didn’t hit very many good shots on the hole. But it worked out.

You’ve now won 12 PGA Tour titles, which is more than any other current player in their 20s. What does that mean to you? Yeah, it means a lot. I’ve been fortunate with a decent amount of them. That’s what happens when you win. Stuff goes your way. Obviously you have to play well and make some putts and hit some shots, but at the end of the day, you need stuff to go your way. It defi nitely did here, and it feels great.

When you missed the eight-footer on 18 and Schauff ele had a similar putt to win, did you think it was all over? Yeah, for sure. It’s so weird. Xander had to go through the same thing I did with

Driver Titleist TS3 3-wood Titleist TS3 5 - wood Titleist 915fd Winning score: -14 New world ranking: 4 Prize money: $1,340,000 PGA Tour victories: 12

3Thomas needed three extra holes to win the tournament

26 At 26, Thomas has the most PGA Tour victories of any current player in their 20s. Jordan Spieth is next on 11

What’s in the bag?

the wind on that putt. It really is not a hard putt. It’s probably the two easiest putts that you could get to that pin. But the wind kind of picked up on mine and went low and the wind stopped on his and that’s why his broke. It was the same with Patrick’s putt on the last hole [Reed joined Thomas and Schauff ele in the play-off ]. I really don’t know how I won. I got very fortunate.

Have you ever had to play the same hole four times in a row in a tournament before? No, defi nitely not. It was the worst hole we could have possibly played to try to beat daylight. We picked a 680-yard par-5 with the wind blowing 30.

You won this tournament back in 2017 and went on to land the USPGA Championship. How does this win compare and are you in a similar place with your game this year? I don't know, they're very diff erent wins. I was in a diff erent stage of my career then. I’m not saying that one win was better than the other or felt better. They're both tremendous accomplishments and huge for me, but that was a long time ago and they were both done diff erently. This one was a lot more stressful and a lot more hardfought. So I'm probably a little bit more tired, a little bit more exhausted after this one. But they both ended with the correct result, which is nice.