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Justin Thomas is THE PLAYERS Champion. 

The last few months have been a dark time for Thomas and he had trouble recovering mentally – until Sunday. 

Back in January at the Tournament of Champions, Thomas was caught on a hot mic using a homophobic slur after a missed putt. That resulted in him losing one of his sponsors. 

Shortly after that, he lost his grandfather, who was a hug part of his golf life. 

“It’s been a crappy couple months. I’ve had stuff happen in my life I never thought I’d have happen, and I mean, losing grandpa was terrible, and having to play a round of golf dealing with that, and then on top of that not playing well, it just was a lot, and it took a lot on me mentally,” said Thomas after the round.

Thomas shot a 68 in the final round for a total score of 14-under par for the tournament. 

He edged Lee Westwood and Bryson DeChambeau by a couple of shots to win his first PLAYERS title. 

Thomas Takes Control 

Thomas entered the final round in the second to last pairing and three shots off the lead. 

However, Westwood and DeChambeau both got off to terrible starts and even though Thomas couldn’t get anything to drop early in the round, he was still right in it. 

However, that changed when when Thomas went birdie, birdie eagle, birdie on holes 9-12 to take a two shot lead. 

“I am proud of myself for that, but I was in such a great frame of mind and focused all day. I really felt like as soon as I started on 1 tee, I just was in a zone and in a focus that I felt like I could make the ball do what I wanted with it, and it felt like I could hit the putts exactly how I wanted. Yeah, it was nice to get in that little head space,” Thomas added. 

Thomas gave a shot back on the 14th hole after missing a short putt, however, a birdie on the par 5 16th pretty much locked up the tournament. 

Westwood and DeChambeau could not make anything happen in the last few holes.