With a top-5 finish at the Fortinet Championship, Justin Thomas trends upward for Ryder Cup

NAPA, Calif. – Justin Thomas quickly realized it wouldn’t be his day.

He began the final round of the Fortinet Championship two shots back. By the time he finished his fifth hole Sunday, he trailed Sahith Theegala by seven.

Disappointing, yes. Given where Thomas has been, and what’s ahead, it was a step in the right direction.

“I’m excited and happy about where my game is going,” Thomas told PGATOUR.COM after a final-round 72. He finished solo-fifth at 15 under.

Thomas carded a clean back nine after four bogeys and just one birdie on the front nine Sunday. He holed a 26-footer for eagle on the par-5 12th and birdied the par-5 18th to end the day at even par.

It wasn’t enough to threaten the lead. Theegala’s final-round 68 assured that. Still, it was a success. This was Thomas’ first start since finishing No. 71 to miss the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time in his career. And it was his first top 5 finish since a solo fourth at the WM Phoenix Open in February.

In his five weeks off, he tinkered with his swing, made coaching changes and received a captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup. His performance in Napa this week was the final piece, confirming he spent the break the right way and that he’s in the best possible position heading to Rome.

“I’ll try to learn from this and see what I can do better and just continue to improve and then get back to work,” he said. “The time off was great, but it is exciting to play golf again and be in contention, and it’s always more fun when you play better.”

In the two months since the Wyndham Championship, Thomas has taken a renewed sense of ownership in his game. He believed he had lost accountability. He became too reliant on his team to solve any issues he ran into and was not as active in the changes as he would have liked. To remedy that, Thomas scaled back how often his father, Mike, is involved. His father is still his swing coach, but Mike won’t travel to every tournament or watch every range session. It’s a similar arrangement to when Thomas was playing some of his best golf in 2017-18 while his father was still balancing his job as a PGA professional. He also parted ways with John Graham, his putting coach.

“He can come out any and all as he wants as a dad,” Thomas said earlier this week, “but there's just going to be some weeks where if things are good, I don't necessarily need a coach, and I think that's more of just where I want things.”

That took shape after Thursday’s round. Following an opening 69 in which he hit just three fairways, Thomas went straight to the range Thursday evening. He pulled up a video of his swing from the round and quickly diagnosed the issue.

“I could tell in one video I was getting stuck underneath it,” he said.

Thomas spent 10 minutes correcting the problem and took some swings with a driver 3/4” longer than his gamer, which he had been experimenting with for several weeks. Then, he left. He texted his dad, who wasn’t on-site, but Thomas found the solution and implemented it without any instruction. He shot 67 on Friday, jumped 56 spots in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and increased his driving distance by 12 yards.

“That's a part of what I think has made me as successful as I've been in my career thus far,” Thomas said, “is I've been very good at adjusting on the fly.”

He will spend the next two weeks adjusting ahead of the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club. His wedge game will be of particular focus.

“I thought it was just atrocious,” he said of his wedges this week. “It’s just frustrating because I worked really hard on it and it was really, really good before I left. I think I was putting just a little too much pressure on myself when I had those wedges instead of just trusting that it’s ready enough.”

Whether Thomas will be ready enough will remain a question until he tees it up for his first session at the Ryder Cup. He was a controversial pick to some, given his struggles this season.

His showing at the Fortinet Championship should give him reason to be optimistic.