After firing his fourth opening round in the 60s in eight career Open starts, Justin Thomas was encouraged.
“Just the shots I’m hitting, the scores I’m shooting, I’m doing a lot of things a lot better, I would say,” Thomas said following his 3-under 68 on Thursday at Royal Troon.
But history repeated itself a day later.
Thomas backed up with a 7-over 78 that included a 9-over 45 on Thomas’ opening nine, which was lowlighted by a double bogey at the par-3 fifth, where Thomas’ first two shots traveled a combined 174 yards at the 215-yard hole, and a triple bogey at the par-4 ninth, where Thomas had to take an unplayable after his tee shot and need five strokes to get on the green.
While Thomas battled with three birdies coming in to make his fourth cut in his past five Opens (a T-11 at Royal Portrush in 2019 remains his only finish better than T-40), he still has not followed a sub-70 score with anything better than 77 at this championship.
In Thomas’ first three Open appearances, his first 36-hole spreads looked like this:
• 2016 – 67-77 (+10 shots)
• 2017 – 67-80 (+13 shots)
• 2018 – 69-77 (+8 shots)
The latter two sets of scores resulted in missed cuts, but like this week, Thomas made the cut at Royal Troon in 2016 before tying for 53rd. At 4 over entering this Saturday, Thomas is 11 shots off the lead.