At 5’10” 160 lbs., Justin Thomas is pound-for-pound one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour.
And with great distance comes incredible start lines. Case in point: No. 14 at Waialae Country Club, host of this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. Moving right along at 3-under par through 13 holes, JT hit a drive on the par-4 14th that nearly broke the PGA Tour’s shot tracer graphic.
The 443-yard par-4 is supposed to play as a dogleg left, but JT decided the hole was better played as a straight-away par-4. After all, the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B is a straight line.
The shortest distance between two points…
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?pic.twitter.com/XweRoVOseY— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) January 11, 2019
The 339-yard drive came to rest in the rough, but as any statistics disciple will tell you, the closer you get to the green, the better chance you have at making birdie. And that’s exactly what Thomas did.
He would go on to stumble over the next three holes, dropping three strokes with consecutive bogeys, but he got two strokes back on the par-5 18th with a fortunate hole out from the greenside bunker.
The 2017 winner of the Sony Open posted a 3-under par 67 to sit six shots back of the first-round leader, Adam Svensson, who made seven birdies and an eagle against no dropped shots on Thursday.
