LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) \u2014 Justin Thomas had the PGA Championship by the collar Thursday afternoon, right up until Aronimink Golf Club reminded him that golf is not a game so much as a practical joke played over 7,000 yards.<\/p>\n
For 13 holes, Thomas was about as clean as you’re going to get at a place like this. He was 3-under, tied for the lead, driving it well, rolling good putts and looking very much like a man ready to make another run at the championship that already has given him the two biggest moments of his career.<\/p>\n
Then came the hard part.<\/p>\n
The wind freshened. The pins got meaner. The day got longer. And No. 14, a 220-yard par-3 playing into a 20 mph wind, sat there with its flag tucked on a ridge like somebody had balanced a teacup on a windowsill during a thunderstorm.<\/p>\n
Louisville<\/a> | Kentucky<\/a> | Indiana<\/a> | Eric Crawford<\/a><\/p>\n “That thing was right on the ridge,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n He bogeyed 14. He dropped another shot late. And what had been a share of the lead became a 1-under 69, still only two shots behind seven co-leaders at 3-under, in a tournament so crowded that 33 players finished within two shots of the lead.<\/p>\n Thomas did not sound discouraged. Tired, yes \u2014 “if I had any energy left, I would go to the range,” he said, “but I’m absolutely not doing that.” But not discouraged.<\/p>\n “I played, I felt like, flawless in there for probably 13 holes,” he said. “Honestly, I just had a very hard time staying focused. It’s a long, long day out there. It’s so, so tough, very, very windy, some tough pins.”<\/p>\n His reward Friday is an earlier wake-up call and, perhaps, a better bargain with the weather. Thomas tees off at 8:29 a.m. on No. 10, after beginning Thursday in the fourth-to-last group and not teeing off until 1:54 p.m.<\/p>\n That matters. Aronimink’s back nine was the more difficult side Thursday, but the morning should offer Thomas a fresher mind and, maybe, slightly friendlier conditions.<\/p>\n “I feel like I did a lot of really good things today,” Thomas said. “Just try to do more of the same to start out tomorrow and see if we can ride a little momentum and focus on a lower number.”<\/p>\n In other words, Thursday did not win Thomas the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n But it kept him close enough to make Friday matter.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n Top Sports Stories on WDRB.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) \u2014 Justin Thomas had the PGA Championship by the collar Thursday afternoon, right up until…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[960,5997,6000,1516,6002,6004,6006,6003,6005,6007,5999,531,6001,5998],"class_list":["post-14102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-justin-thomas","tag-aronimink-golf-club","tag-contention","tag-eric-crawford","tag-justin-thomas","tag-local-college-sports","tag-local-high-school-sports","tag-local-pro-sports","tag-louisville-college-sports","tag-louisville-high-school-sports","tag-louisville-pro-sports","tag-louisville-sports","tag-pga-championship","tag-tom-lane","tag-wdrb-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}