On a week when scores surged north of 1,000 over par, Justin Thomas held on and threw down a thrilling ending to the 2018 Honda Classic as he won in a one-hole playoff over Luke List. The victory was his second of the 2017-18 season, seventh in the last two years and eighth of his career.
Following a first 10 holes that saw Thomas hit just four fairways in regulation and bonk a tee ball off some rocks on a par 3, he got through the Bear Trap unscathed before unleashing one of the more dramatic endings to a tournament we've seen all year.
As they stepped to the 18th hole, Thomas and playing partner List were tied at 7 under with Alex Noren, who was already in the clubhouse. Thomas and List pumped two of the three longest drives of the day on No. 18, but List was in the fairway and Thomas was not. Because he pushed his into the right rough, Thomas had to lay up to 117 yards away on the par 5. List went for the green, made it and had a 33-foot eagle putt. Thomas, however, was just giving List a better seat for the show as it turned out. His third shot nearly went in the cup. It stayed up, but Thomas had a kick-in birdie. List covered him up with a two-putt birdie of his own, and those two went to a playoff.
After List pumped one amid the palm trees on the first playoff hole and hit his second off a hospitality tent, it was all but over. List said afterward he knew Thomas was going to make birdie, and Thomas did with ease after reaching the par-5 green in two.
It capped off a three-day stretch in which Thomas made 51 pars or birdies and shot a round-of-the-tournament 65 on Saturday.
Tommy Fleetwood (4th) was lights out on the weekend as he fired a 67-69 that nearly scored him his first win on the PGA Tour. Still, some of the shots he hit at PGA National, while not surprising given his ball flight and trajectory, that first PGA Tour victory is on deck.
Rory McIlroy (T59) finished top 20 in strokes gained putting. The bad news is that that stat usually means he wins the golf tournament.
Tiger Woods (12th) played about as well as anybody could have envisioned him playing this week following that missed cut at the Genesis Open last week at Riviera Country Club. There are a number of different stats to pick from over the course of Tiger's even-par 280, but the one that probably stood out most was his proximity to the hole number of 29 feet, 3 inches. Woods was pin high on pretty much every single hole and it all adds up to Woods surging into the top 400 of the Official World Golf Rankings.
Rickie Fowler (MC) ejected hard in the second round with a 76. The defending champion made six bogeys and a double that day and never had a shot at the cut line.
