“You might not see me until next year”, McIlroy said after finishing one over par for the event.
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While Fox was struggling, Thomas vaulted to the front of the field with four birdies in a sizzling seven-hole stretch mid-round and held firm over the unsafe final water-lined three holes, known as the ‘Green Mile’. Kisner finished with a double bogey 6.
The leaderboard was full of players who have never won a major championship – of the top eight finishers, only Louis Oosthuizen arrived at Quail Hollow Club with one – so it seemed inevitable that someone would claim one for the first time.
The birdie putt put him just one shot behind tournament leader Hideki Matsuyama.
“The course played tough”. All it took were some slightly more friendly pin positions – and some great golf. A final group containing Day and Matsuyama was never going to be very swift, but the brain freeze from Day on the 18th was a hard to watch. “My girlfriend was supposed to fly out at about 7 and I was like, ‘You need to change your flight to later, because I just feel like I don’t want you to miss this”.
“Hopefully I’m going to win some more, plenty more, a lot more”, Thomas said.
It was the shot of the day under the circumstances, and the birdie gave Thomas a two-shot buffer playing the last.
Thomas’ putt on the par-4 10th hole rolled up to the left side of the cup, hanging over the edge. Kisner’s tied with Thomas and just one behind.
One by one, rivals fell aside, the last being compatriot Kisner, whose 209-yard eagle longshot from the 18th fairway to force a playoff landed in a creek. “And that chip-in on 13 was huge”, Thomas said. “It had to be an unbelievable day spectating”.
Thomas found his resolve after sinking a 14-foot putt to salvage bogey at the first hole.
Matsuyama opened with a bogey, made birdie at the par-5 seventh, but stumbled with back-to-back bogeys at 12 and the par-3 13.
“My first win, I hit it through a tree (with a gap) the size of two feet during the last round”, he said.
Still, Matsuyama, who was at six under with Stroud, and Thomas – a further shot back – were favoured to win the Wanamaker Trophy in Charlotte, where hot and humid conditions again greeted players. The top contender among them is American Chris Stroud on five-under overall with five front-nine holes remaining. But the championship turned on the 16th hole.
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Thomas closed with 3-under 68 on Sunday at Quail Hollow to emerge from the shadow of Jordan Spieth, his longtime friend, and capture his first major, something that belonged just as much to the two generations of PGA professionals that came before him in his family.
