This weekend saw the final major of the golf season take place, the PGA Championship. Going into the final round, Kevin Kisner had a one-shot leading over journeyman Chris Stroud and No.3 player in the world Hideki Matsuyama. Two strokes behind Kisner were the No. 14 player in the world, Justin Thomas, and Louis Oosthuizen, the only player in the top 11 who had previously won a major.
Thomas takes major on the back-nine
Justin Thomas started his day bogeying two of the first three holes, although he did birdie the second hole. He started to get some momentum going, birding the seventh and ninth holes to shoot a 1-under 34 on the front nine.
The tenth hole is where the momentum of the tournament started to turn for Thomas. He hit an awful looking tee shot that veered left into the trees but somehow bounced out and landed on the fairway. Thomas then hit a poor second shot that landed ten feet over the green but managed to chip it within ten feet of the hole.
His birdie putt then hung on the lip for almost exactly ten seconds, before dropping in for birdie.
That kept Thomas within one of Matsuyama, who also birdied the hole but would implode with three straight bogeys that he never recovered from.
On the 13th hole, Thomas then made a long birdie putt from off of the green. He then put the tournament away with an amazing seven iron shot on the par-3 17th, which led him to make one of the very few birdies of the day on that hole. This brought Thomas to 9-under, although he would bogey the last hole to finish with an 8-under 68 for the day, two-shots better than any one else.
Thomas gets first professional victory on mainland
Justin Thomas captured his first ever major with his victory at the PGA Championship. This was Thomas's fifth career victory and interestingly enough it was his first ever PGA Tour victory on the mainland United States.
He had previously won the CIMB Classic in 2015 and 2016, which takes place in Malaysia. This January he won the SBS Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open, which both took place in Hawaii.
Thomas makes history in major victory
Interestingly enough, Justin Thomas became the first recent major winner to not shoot under par in his opening round. He shot a 2-over 73 on Thursday, whereas the previous 17 major winners all shot under par in their opening rounds. At only 24 years and 3 months of age, Thomas became the fourth youngest player to win the PGA Championship. Only Tiger Woods (23-7, 1999), Jack Nicklaus (23-6, 1963) and Rory McIlroy (23-2, 2012) were younger.