Justin Thomas had a pretty rough go of things early on Saturday afternoon as he worked to climb up the U.S. Open leaderboard.
At a par-four No. 4 hole that’s given him trouble all weekend, Thomas landed his third-round tee shot just a few inches from a drain pipe. He thought the location would cause enough interference to afford him a free drop from USGA officials. He was wrong. Officials instead told him to play the ball as it lies.
That resulted in Thomas completely duffing his second shot and landing it in the sand trap short of the green. An understandably upset JT then launched an expletive-laden rant as he walked down the fairway.
Warning: NSFW
The Country Club at Brookline is proving to be a frustrating course. #USOpen
📺: @NBC & @PeacockTV pic.twitter.com/mNUqARLH1W
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) June 18, 2022
JT just like you and me.#PGA #USGA @JustinThomas34 that should have been a drop pic.twitter.com/mSfaLYWaat
— Let's Go Oilers (@fffuson) June 18, 2022
The NBC broadcast crew said Thomas was asked if he could hit the ball and his answer meant he had to. Which explains Thomas saying “so many other people would lie about being able to hit that” as he argued for a free drop.
But the counter-argument there is that the drain pipe creates more of a mental block than a physical one—meaning Thomas shouldn’t get relief just because of a difficult lie. After all, MJ Daffue hit a shot off a hospitality tent deck on Friday and he was in first place at the time, too.
Fortunately, Justin Thomas is a much better golfer than you and I because that whole little adventure only ended up costing him one stroke. He’d go onto bogey a hole that he’d bogeyed the two previous rounds.
Thomas made it through the seventh hole plus-two on the day, three over for the tournament and in a tie for 37th place. He’s still +7500 live at Tipico Sportsbook, but those odds appear to be getting longer as his day goes on.
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