Thomas in vintage form at BMW Championship

MEDINAH, Ill. – It’s all about Justin Thomas now.

After coming into the BMW Championship winless this season, 2017 FedExCup champion Thomas scorched Medinah No. 3 with an 11-under-par 61, a new course record, and will go into Sunday’s final round with a six-shot lead over Tony Finau (68) and Patrick Cantlay (68).

“I’m just trying to get my lead to seven right now,” said Thomas, who won a combined eight times in 2017-18 but has been noticeably absent from the winner’s circle after missing time this season with a wrist injury. “It’s at six. That’s the one thing I’m focused on.”

This will mark the 10th time Thomas has held or shared the 54-hole lead on the PGA TOUR; he has converted six of nine such leads into victories. Thomas, Finau and Cantlay will play in the last group at 1:20 p.m. ET. Players will go off in threesomes with storms in the forecast.

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For Finau, it will be the second straight day of watching Thomas up-close.

“This golf course, when I played here on Tuesday for the first time, I was almost convinced a single digit (score) was going to win,” Finau said. “… If you would have told me somebody would shoot 61 this week, I would have told you that’s a joke.”

He was hardly the only player shaking his head. Thomas birdied six of the first eight holes and eagled the par-5 10th hole. He wasn’t perfect; he bogeyed the sixth. Also, he pulled his wedge shot left of the green at the par-5 14th hole, one of his few bad shots, but chipped in for birdie.

Another bad shot: Thomas drove into the water on 15, but after he took a drop he simply got up and down for par from 63 yards. It was that kind of day, and it was about to get even crazier.

“I’m five back right now,” said Jon Rahm (66), who was marveling at Thomas’ chip-in birdie on 14 as the leader finished up the back nine. “Hopefully JT doesn’t get too far away.”

Well, so much for that idea. Because in short order, Thomas holed his 180-yard second shot with an 8-iron to eagle the 16th hole, and hit his tee shot to six and a half feet for another birdie on 17.

“He was already playing well,” said Finau, who authored his own holed out from 119 yards for eagle at the fourth hole. “And that shot on 16 put him over the top from well to really well.”

With a score of 65 or better, Thomas (65-69-61) would break Marc Leishman’s 72-hole BMW Championship record (261). A victory at the BMW, the penultimate event of the season, brings 2,000 FedExCup points, and Thomas is projected to move from 15th to first in the standings.

That’s especially important this year, as it would put him in pole position by two strokes in the new staggered-start format of next week’s TOUR Championship at East Lake.

The runaway leader, though, refused to think that far ahead.

“I could care less, to be honest,” said Thomas, who needed just 22 putts Saturday. “I’m just worried about trying to win this tournament tomorrow.”

The week began with Thomas calling this an “odd” season so far because of his wrist injury, a bone bruise suffered while hitting a tree at The Honda Classic (T30). He finished T12 at the Masters Tournament, but seemed to re-aggravate the wrist, and opted to take a break.

He missed three tournaments, including the PGA Championship – a tournament he had won just two years before – and upon returning to action at the Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide, he missed the cut. He also missed the cut at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach but began to climb back at The Open Championship (T11), World Golf Championships – FedEx St. Jude Invitational (T12) and THE NORTHERN TRUST (T12).

He huddled with his team, which consists largely of his father/coach, Mike, and caddie, Jimmy Johnson. What was he doing wrong? They all agreed the answer was not much. He was due.

After struggling in his warm-up for the first round at the BMW, Thomas shot 65 and proclaimed that he was playing every bit as well as he did in his 2017 FedExCup-winning and Player of the Year season. After his fourth round of 61 or better on TOUR, no one is arguing the point.

“I felt good about my game for a while,” Thomas said, “and you don't know when something like this is going to happen, a round like this. We've all been talking the last couple of weeks that I'm due to have one and it's nice when it happens. At the end of the day, this round was great and awesome, but it's over with and I need to go focus on tomorrow.”