The third round of the Valspar Championship was set up to be a thriller, with a number of experienced and inexperienced names in contention at the Copperhead Course.
Amongst the congested leaderboard was Justin Thomas, who was arguably one of the favourites after re-finding his form in 2024, following a disappointing 2023 season that saw him miss the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time in his career.
However, despite birdieing the opening hole in his third round, Thomas was about to have a day to forget, as the American carded an eight-over-par 79, which included his worst ever putting display and a total of 38 putts.
So, how did Thomas lose over seven strokes on the green and drop from a tie for the lead into 66th? Well, after three-putting from 25-feet on the second, he would miss from six-feet at the par 4 third.
Further missed putts from short distances followed, with the worst of those coming at the seventh hole where, after missing a par putt from 10-feet, Thomas looked to clean up from two-feet for his bogey. His next effort, though, missed on the right side and did a near 360° rotation, as the double bogey meant he dropped from three to five shots back.
To compound the misery further, Thomas bogeyed the eighth and ninth, the eighth featured a missed putt from four-foot as well, with the 30-year-old carding a five-over 41 to fall to even-par for the tournament. Tackling the back nine, he bogeyed the 10th, 12th and 14th, as a further 38 strokes gave him an eight-over 79.
Justin Thomas was tied for the lead midway through Friday’s round but just shot a 79 to finish T66 on Moving Day at the Valspar pic.twitter.com/soPWvuOkuJMarch 23, 2024
The performance was the worst putting round of his career, with Thomas not holing a single putt outside three-feet. In fact, his putt of 2'9" at the very first hole was the longest he made all day!
Having holed 27 putts on both Thursday and Friday, Thomas lost 7.034 strokes on the greens on Saturday, with his performance the worst in the field.
