Justin Thomas is showing flashes.
A week ago, he torched the difficult Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass with a 62. His course record-tying round got him through to the weekend after opening with a 78.
This week, at the 2025 Valspar Championship, Thomas was 1 over, right on the cutline for most of Friday till it shifted to 2 over late in the day, but still, he did enough to get through to the weekend again.
On Saturday, Thomas went low again, shooting 6-under 65, a career-best in 29 rounds at Innisbrook.
Just 1 under at the turn, Thomas parred the 10th then went eagle-birdie-birdie-birdie-bogey-birdie. That’s 5 under over a six-hole stretch and he signed for that 65. His final birdie of Saturday came on the difficult 16th and he’s bogey-free and 2 under through the Snake Pit, the challenging final three-hole stretch at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook.
Thomas played alongside good buddy Jordan Spieth for a third straight day, the last time that happened was the 2018 Players Championship. He admitted there was a little bit of a “game within the game” out there.
“I think both of us would probably be lying if we said no. I mean, he got it going,” Thomas said, adding that it wouldn’t hurt if the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain was taking notes. “Hopefully, Keegan [Bradley] was watching,” he said.
Back to the Spieth pairing: “We obviously enjoy each other’s company and have played and are comfortable playing with each other and played a lot of golf together. But definitely makes it a lot better when you’re out a little earlier than you would like on a Saturday morning, but you can kind of get the crowd into it. And we made a couple putts there on 4 and then he made a long one there on 7 and it seemed like that kind of got the crowd going and that’s fun for us.”
Thomas was one off the lead of Jacob Bridgeman but also finished before the final groups teed off.
Still, Thomas’ 65, the low round of the week so far, has him in contention for a 16th PGA Tour victory although he’ll need another low round Sunday. Last year’s champ, Peter Malnati, finished 12 under. Taylor Moore won at 10 under in 2023. Sam Burns went 17 under in back-to-back years to win the Valspar in 2021 and 2022.
“We always want to beat each other when we’re playing with each other and that pushes us to play better. But the last couple of times he’s gotten the better of me, so,” Spieth said. “He was going to be hard to beat at 6 under today. It was just that last like five, that last eight holes for me I felt like I left two, three out there and he capitalized. Being at 5 under, like he is, you probably have a pretty good chance at this golf tournament, considering he could go shoot another 6 under tomorrow and then have a chance to win. For me, I’m a little bit further behind.”
Speith is in a group tied at 3 under, which was three off the lead when he signed his scorecard.
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