DUBLIN, Ohio \u2014 Before he embarked on his third round in the Memorial Tournament Saturday morning, Justin Thomas posted a GIF on X (formerly Twitter) from the 2007 film \u201cSuperbad,\u201d that read, \u201csitting here eating alone like Steven Glansberg.\u201d<\/p>\n
After sneaking in a five-footer for par on the left side of the cup at 18 to make the cut on the number Friday afternoon, Thomas was first off Saturday as a single among the 53 players who survived the highest cut of the year\u2014five-over-par 149\u2014on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a little bit of a different feeling,\u201d the two-time major winner said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I was going for [as a message].\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas had reason to feel a bit forlorn. He knew what was in store with Muirfield Village Golf Club remaining firm and winds still swirling as he prepared to tee off at 8:30 a.m. ET. He\u2019d barely survived the first two rounds playing alongside Rory McIlroy. When the pair had finished late Friday, they hugged instead of shaking hands, having shared a difficult day and managed to persevere.<\/p>\n
Thomas had scrambled to a 75, while McIlroy, the reigning Masters champion, had carded a 74.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just looked at each other and I think we both, we were like, we need a hug,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cHe probably realized I needed one [a hug] maybe more. It was a grind. It was a different grind for him, but, yeah, we were just battling out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas, who has top-25 finishes in his last four starts, including T-4 at the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, bogeyed his final hole Saturday to post an even-par 72 and sit at five-over 221 overall, moving up the board decently. Still he was none too happy, mostly because the storm that blew through central Ohio and caused a suspension of play for one hour, 44 minutes came after the world No. 16 player had completed 13 holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a totally different golf course. Soft. No wind,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re off first you\u2019re still thinking, \u2018OK, made the cut on the number, you can still finish top five or top 10.\u2019 I’m more bummed by the fact that the wind completely died, and I played 13 holes and now these guys are playing a lot softer, easier. That’s kind of the joy of being first off because you normally get no wind and an easier course. But I missed the window. But, you know, you\u2019ve gotta play better.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the second year in a row the cut at Muirfield Village was five over par. Thomas said Friday\u2019s round was \u201cthe hardest round of golf that I can remember, major, non-major.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Saturday? \u201cIt was still hard,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not as hard. Someone is going to shoot a number. It\u2019s out there. I wish I was out there now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBLIN, Ohio \u2014 Before he embarked on his third round in the Memorial Tournament Saturday morning, Justin Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7176,44,1516,5923,1418,54,531,144,82],"class_list":["post-17032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pga-championship","tag-a-major-champ-an-unusually-early-tee-time-and-a-sassy-movie-reference-make-for-fun-and-games-at-memorial","tag-golf","tag-justin-thomas","tag-memorial","tag-memorial-tournament","tag-news","tag-pga-championship","tag-pga-tour","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032","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=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}