TULSA, Okla. – Justin Thomas didn’t pay attention to any score but his own Sunday in the PGA Championship, knowing he was seven shots behind at Southern Hills Country Club but with only six players ahead of him on a golf course where anything could happen.
He never could have dreamed how it all played out: a chaotic final hour of pressure-packed moments, clutch putts and unimaginable heartache for 54-hole leader Mito Pereira.
Thomas hit a shank on the sixth hole. He made a 65-foot birdie putt that began his record-tying comeback. He missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation that he feared would cost him. He never led until one hole remained in his three-hole aggregate playoff with Will Zalatoris.
And when Thomas tapped in for par to capture another PGA Championship title, five years after his first, for the 15th overall win of his PGA Tour career, he stood on the 18th green with a mixture of joy and disbelief.
“I was asked early in the week what lead is safe, and I said ‘No lead,'” the 29-year-old former University of Alabama golfer said. “I can’t believe I found myself in a playoff.”
Thomas closed with a 3-under-par 67 that turned out to be enough for a playoff when Pereira, the 27-year-old from Chile in his first PGA Championship who had not trailed all day, drove into a creek and made a double bogey on the 18th hole to finish one shot behind.
It was the first time since Phil Mickelson in the 2006 U.S. Open that a player gave away a one-shot lead on the final hole to lose a major.
“Sad to hit it in the water,” Pereira said. “I mean, I wish I could do it again.”
Just like his first PGA Championship victory in 2017 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, the signature shot for Thomas came on the 17th hole. It was the second hole of the aggregate playoff. He drilled a 3-wood on the 301-yard par 4 to 35 feet for a two-putt birdie, securing his first lead of the day.
Zalatoris, whose must-make eight-footers for birdie and par on the final two holes of regulation got him into the playoff with a 71, couldn’t deliver in overtime. His eight-foot birdie putt on the 17th in the playoff missed, and he couldn’t catch Thomas at the end.
Zalatoris looked like he had thrown away his chances for a first major – and first PGA Tour victory – when he three-putted from just outside 20 feet on the 16th hole. But he responded with a birdie from the bunker at the 17th and holed an eight-foot par putt on the 18th for a 71.
He joined Thomas at 5-under 275, and they played on when Pereira faltered.
Chattanooga native Keith Mitchell, after three straight rounds of 72, closed with a 68 and tied for 34th at 4 over. One stroke further back was fellow Baylor School graduate Luke List (70) as he shared 41st.
Thomas, who had gone 14 months since his most recent victory, a win at The Players Championship, now has a tour triumph for the eighth consecutive year and moves to No. 5 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
And his second major championship came when he least expected it.
None of the six players ahead of him had ever won one of golf’s biggest four events. Thomas knew that. He was in the longest drought since his first PGA Tour title. He was aware of that, too.
“I remember how tough it is now to win, so I knew I was going to be nervous, and I knew they’d be feeling the exact same thing,” Thomas said. “You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
John Mahaffey in the 1978 PGA Championship was the other player to come from seven shots behind on the final day. He won in a playoff over Jerry Pate and Tom Watson.
Thomas was still seven shots behind when he made his remarkable run, a mixture of key birdies and keeping mistakes off his card. It started with an improbable birdie putt from just short of the green to a back pin on the par-3 11th. He edged closer with an 18-foot birdie on the next hole.
He was lurking, while the leading pack behind him was leaking oil. Zalatoris and Cameron Young each caught Pereira, ever so briefly. All of them found trouble in the rough, the sand and the greens.
Pereira was on the cusp of becoming Chile’s first major champion and giving South America the career Grand Slam. Even after five bogeys, he never lost the lead and delivered clutch par saves from the bunker left of the ninth green and from well behind the 10th green. None was bigger than his 12-foot putt on the 16th to stay one shot ahead.
It all came undone with one shot.
His sawed-off swing with the driver, so effective on the previous hole, peeled to the right and into the creek down the right side of the 18th fairway. After a penalty drop, his approach up the hill started left and never cut back, landing in the rough. His chip rolled off the back edge of the green.
His double bogey gave him a 75, a hard-luck end to such a promising week.
“On Monday, I just wanted to make the cut. On Sunday, I wanted to win,” Pereira said. “I’ll take this to learn for the future.”
Young, whose father is a longtime PGA professional, also will look back at missed chances. Playing with Zalatoris, a former roommate at Wake Forest, Young was in the mix all day and was briefly tied for the lead. His hopes ended on the 16th when he found a bunker right of the green, blasted out weakly to 30 feet and three-putted for a double bogey. He closed with a 71 to share fourth with Pereira.