KAPALUA, Maui >> Justin Thomas never really threatened to capture this winners-only event for the second time, but his play this week at the Sentry Tournament of Champions sets him up well for the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Thomas’ closing round of 65 left him alone in third at 18 under for the tournament. He and Webb Simpson fashioned the second-best rounds of the day behind eventual winner Xander Schauffele, whose closing 62 left him one shot clear of Gary Woodland with a four-day total of 23-under 269.
Thomas won this event and the Sony Open in back-to-back victories in 2017. He’s looking forward to touring the grounds of Waialae Country Club, especially if he plays as well as he did on Sunday.
“I want to rest my legs,” Thomas said when asked what he would do to prepare for the Sony. “They’re pretty tired. There’s just no way to really prepare for walking this golf course. It’s shin-splint heaven. My right shin is hollering at me pretty good right now. I’m going to get some rest and watch the ’Bama game tomorrow afternoon and do my usual Tuesday, Wednesday prep work on wedges and short game.”
Thomas is an Alabama alum and has a vested interest in the national championship football game played later this afternoon. As for how he competed this week, Thomas had nothing but good things to say.
“It was a good week, a lot of positives,” Thomas said. “Definitely felt like I accomplished a lot more than I did last year here. It was nice not to have as much wind today and finally feel like I could make some putts. All in all a very solid week.”
Gambling on commissioner’s agenda
Perhaps the most important sidebar of the multi-million dollar match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson is how gambling could affect the PGA Tour in the not too distant future.
The match, won by Mickelson, not only featured numerous side bets between the two golfers, but because it was held in Las Vegas, sportsbooks gave their patrons certain proposition wagers just to make things interesting throughout the match play event that fans across the nation watched via pay-per-view.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan addressed the “gaming issue” during a wide-ranging interview on Saturday with members of the media covering this week’s event. He broke it down into two parts before answering a variety of questions on this subject that could take off in the future.
“So on the gaming side we have for the last couple of years put all the systems in place to be an integrity program, a monitoring program, get our Shot Link technology in a place where we can be in a position to participate,” Monahan said. “And the reason that we do it is that we think that gaming leads to more engagement.”
For years, sportsbooks offered weekly odds on golfers playing in a tournament. In major events, they will put certain pairings up and then place odds on which golfer will beat the other by the end of the tournament. But what could happen in the future is you could bet on golfers and what they will do on certain holes. The options, with 156 in a full-field event, are endless.
“We are talking to betting operators,” Monahan said. “We’re talking to daily fantasy operators. And internationally we announced a deal that IMG Arena will be distributing our data to amongst other entities, betting operators. When you talk about growing and diversifying your fan base and keeping your fans engaged for longer periods of time, there’s some real potential there.”
Inside the numbers
Brooks Koepka finished alone in 24th with a four-day total of 288. That alone wouldn’t make a lot of news, but it cost him his world No. 1 ranking that he held for six weeks. Despite skipping this week’s tournament at Kapalua, Justin Rose ascended to the top spot for the fourth time in his career. Neither golfer is playing at this week’s Sony Open. The top-ranked golfer in the field at Waialae is Thomas at No. 4.
With the winds switching to Kona and barely blowing the last half of the day, the scores by the 33 golfers in the field reflected it. The fourth-round scoring average of 69.727 was the lowest of the week by about 1.5 strokes. The hardest hole for the day was the par-3 second with an average of 3.242. There was only one birdie by Jason Day with 23 pars and nine bogeys. The easiest hole was the par-5 ninth with a scoring average of 4.242 with two eagles, 21 birdies and 10 pars.
