Justin Thomas carded a closing 68 to secure a comfortable three-stroke victory at the BMW Championship at Medinah Country Club in Illinois.
The 26-year-old American started the final round with a six-stroke lead following his record-breaking third round 61, and although fellow countryman Patrick Cantlay halved the margin of his lead with a final round 65, Thomas had more than enough in hand to take the third leg of the FedEx Cup finals, with a 72-hole aggregate score of 25 under par.
Thomas’s advantage over Cantlay was cut to just two shot when he bogeyed the 10th hole, after almost hitting his second out of bounds, but the leader steadied the ship by twice holing putts of around 12 feet to re-establish his authority.
“Patrick made that very interesting,” a relieved Thomas said. “I was really nervous today. It’s hard to play with the lead, and I hit the ball so bad to start the day. I’m usually pretty good at hitting fairways and greens, but I couldn’t hit a fairway. But I stayed patient and that birdie on 11 was huge.”
The victory was the 10th of his PGA Tour career, but the first this year in what has been an injury-interrupted season. Thomas hurt his wrist in March and took six weeks off to rest.
“I’d forgotten how hard it was to win,” said Thomas, who moved up to fifth in the world rankings. “This game is so hard, you don’t know how often things like this are going to happen. It’s not like I’ve been playing badly. In fact, I would argue I’ve played just as well this year as any other year. But it’s a tough game and I learned to respect it and be patient.”
The result means Thomas is the number one seed at next week’s season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta. The top 30 players on the FedEx Cup points list qualified for the event, where the winner at East Lake will collect $15 million. For the first time the tournament will use a staggered start based on players’ position in the points race, with Thomas starting at 10 under par. The qualifiers ranked 26th to 30th will begin at even par.
Three players who started the BMW Championship outside the top 30 in the standings earned their place at the Tour Championship — Hideki Matsuyama, Lucas Glover and Jason Kokrak. Missing out was Open champion Shane Lowry, along with Americans Andrew Putnam and Harold Varner III. There will be no defending champion at East Lake, as Tiger Woods did not qualify after finishing equal 37th.