As he approached his 21-foot, 2-inch birdie putt on Harbour Town’s 18th hole in a two-man playoff for Sunday’s RBC Heritage title, Justin Thomas mentioned to his caddie, Joe Greiner, that he’d never made a putt of length to win a golf tournament.
Thomas had won 15 PGA Tour events prior to this week. The longest final stroke he’d made was 14 feet, 4 inches at the 2019 BMW Championship, though he won that by three shots. The longest final putt he’d made in a one-shot win? That would be about 4 feet at the 2015 CIMB Classic, his first PGA Tour title.
“Been fortunate to have a bunch of tap-ins, but I’ve never made a putt, and that was pretty cool,” said Thomas, who drained the overtime birdie putt to defeat Andrew Novak and notch his first win in 1,064 days, since the 2022 PGA Championship.
“That was as fun as I thought it would be.”
WHAT A WAY TO WIN IT!
Justin Thomas with the putt to claim victory at the @RBC_Heritagepic.twitter.com/JSaofLwsur
— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 20, 2025
Here is the length of every final putt Thomas has made in a win on the PGA Tour:
(Note: Some events did not have ShotLink data, so the lengths are estimates.)
- 2025 RBC Heritage – 21’2”
- 2022 PGA Championship – ~3’
- 2021 Players – 2’7”
- 2020 WGC-St. Jude Invitational – 18”
- 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions – 3’5”
- 2019 CJ Cup – ~5’
- 2019 BMW Championship – 14’4”
- 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – 2’1”
- 2018 Honda Classic – ~3’
- 2017 CJ Cup – ~2’
- 2017 Dell Technologies Championship – 8”
- 2017 PGA Championship – ~6”
- 2017 Sony Open – 11”
- 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions – 2’11”
- 2016 CIMB Classic – ~1”
- 2015 CIMB Classic – ~4’
Thomas finished third in strokes gained putting for the week, bumping his season rank 16 spots to No. 24. That’s notable considering that Thomas, who was a top-50 putter early in his pro career, dropped from No. 135 to No. 174 last season in strokes gained putting.
Thomas’ performance on the greens was so disheartening that toward the end of last year, he reached out to a fellow competitor, then world No. 2 Xander Schauffele.
“I think he’s one of the best putters in fundamentals – and not just putting but everything – and I was just like, ‘Can I just pick your brain for like two or three hours, just talk to you about putting?’” Thomas said. “So, he came out with me, and he just was asking me a bunch of different questions. You guys obviously know Xander, but he doesn’t leave any box unchecked. Like he said that day, he’s like, ‘If it has anything to do with you potentially improving in golf, I’ve probably done it or tried it.’ … The more I was talking, I’m like, I don’t do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years. 2017-18, I was very, very regimented of the things that I did, and how he said it is I had a home base, and I had no home base. I had things that I did, but it was a very vague bag of things and there was no consistency to it.”
Thomas added: “Honestly, while he helped, it was more of the questions he asked me made me realize that I’m trying basically too hard.”
Published April 20, 2025 08:44 PM
As he approached his 21-foot, 2-inch birdie putt on Harbour Town’s 18th hole in a two-man playoff for Sunday’s RBC Heritage title, Justin Thomas mentioned to his caddie, Joe Greiner, that he’d never made a putt of length to win a golf tournament.
Thomas had won 15 PGA Tour events prior to this week. The longest final stroke he’d made was 14 feet, 4 inches at the 2019 BMW Championship, though he won that by three shots. The longest final putt he’d made in a one-shot win? That would be about 4 feet at the 2015 CIMB Classic, his first PGA Tour title.
“Been fortunate to have a bunch of tap-ins, but I’ve never made a putt, and that was pretty cool,” said Thomas, who drained the overtime birdie putt to defeat Andrew Novak and notch his first win in 1,064 days, since the 2022 PGA Championship.
“That was as fun as I thought it would be.”
Here is the length of every final putt Thomas has made in a win on the PGA Tour:
(Note: Some events did not have ShotLink data, so the lengths are estimates.)
- 2025 RBC Heritage – 21’2”
- 2022 PGA Championship – ~3’
- 2021 Players – 2’7”
- 2020 WGC-St. Jude Invitational – 18”
- 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions – 3’5”
- 2019 CJ Cup – ~5’
- 2019 BMW Championship – 14’4”
- 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational – 2’1”
- 2018 Honda Classic – ~3’
- 2017 CJ Cup – ~2’
- 2017 Dell Technologies Championship – 8”
- 2017 PGA Championship – ~6”
- 2017 Sony Open – 11”
- 2017 SBS Tournament of Champions – 2’11”
- 2016 CIMB Classic – ~1”
- 2015 CIMB Classic – ~4’
Thomas finished third in strokes gained putting for the week, bumping his season rank 16 spots to No. 24. That’s notable considering that Thomas, who was a top-50 putter early in his pro career, dropped from No. 135 to No. 174 last season in strokes gained putting.
Thomas’ performance on the greens was so disheartening that toward the end of last year, he reached out to a fellow competitor, then world No. 2 Xander Schauffele.
“I think he’s one of the best putters in fundamentals – and not just putting but everything – and I was just like, ‘Can I just pick your brain for like two or three hours, just talk to you about putting?’” Thomas said. “So, he came out with me, and he just was asking me a bunch of different questions. You guys obviously know Xander, but he doesn’t leave any box unchecked. Like he said that day, he’s like, ‘If it has anything to do with you potentially improving in golf, I’ve probably done it or tried it.’ … The more I was talking, I’m like, I don’t do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years. 2017-18, I was very, very regimented of the things that I did, and how he said it is I had a home base, and I had no home base. I had things that I did, but it was a very vague bag of things and there was no consistency to it.”
Thomas added: “Honestly, while he helped, it was more of the questions he asked me made me realize that I’m trying basically too hard.”
