PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Boring golf. It’s what everyone in professional golf subscribes to.
Just go out there, stripe it down the middle of the fairway, find the green, maybe within 20 feet of the hole. Make the putt or lag it close, then tap it in.
That is boring golf to a tee.
That's the golf Justin Thomas witnessed for two days. The problem for Thomas is that it wasn’t his own golf, but that of his playing partner, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who has opened 67-69 here while trying to become the first player to win consecutive editions of this event in its 50-year history.
About the only excitement from Scheffler on Friday came when he experienced neck spasms after a shot on the second hole, which required treatment. He appeared to flinch a bit at times the rest of the round.
“Someone like Scotty probably just viewed it as a challenge,” Thomas said of Scheffler’s neck issue. “See how I can get it around here and how I can get it to the house and then try to get some rest and feel better for the weekend kind of thing, and he did that.”
Injured or not, Scheffler played these two days like he was half-robot, half-golfer. Through 36 holes he trails the early clubhouse leader Wyndham Clark by six shots. Thomas was a fan of Scheffler's methodical approach.
“This is not an insult or disrespect in any way, it’s boring golf,” Thomas said of Scheffler’s game. “I mean, he hits the fairways, he hits the greens. He never puts himself in a position to make very many bogeys. And, you know, he takes advantage of the par fives. He just does all the things that you should do and all the all the things that great players do when they're playing well.”
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Thomas has also played some boring golf at his peak, but the Thomas version was still a little more exciting than Scheffler’s because he's more erratic off the tee and needed the occasional miraculous escape, as all good players do.
This week there were no miracles for Thomas. He missed the cut for the first time in nine Players appearances.
Oddly enough, Thomas was 2 under par and nine shots behind Lee Westwood after two rounds in 2021 but then shot 64-68 on the weekend to win by one.
That week was in Thomas’s thought process on Friday.
“I played well enough, that's probably the frustrating part. I really wanted to make the cut, because I felt like if I made the cut, I could go shoot, you know, 12, 15 under this weekend,” Thomas said after signing for 74 on Friday. “That’s just how this place is. It sucks.”
If there is any solace, it’s that Thomas is playing better and his hard work is beginning to pay off.
“I think I finally figured out why people have not had a consistent, good record here and I just think this course has so many little nooks and bumps and just weird stuff that can happen that at some point, you're going to get some bad breaks your ball's gonna go in some weird spots," Thomas said.
For Scheffler, assuming his neck is good, he will be in one of the final groups on Saturday and will likely get back to playing boring golf.
“He’ll be fine,” Thomas said of Scheffler. “He’s young.”
