Justin Thomas Performed a Miracle at Medinah

The BMW Championship, the second to last tournament in the FedExCup playoffs, was played this past weekend at the beautiful Medinah Country Club in Illinois. Medinah is a suburb located northwest of Chicago. It should not be confused with Medina, the holy city in Saudi Arabia where the Islamic prophet Muhammed is buried. Medina is one of the two holiest cities in Islam; the other is Dearborn Michigan.

The top 70 professionals in the FedExCup standings gathered there to compete for the right to advance to the final playoff round and to have a shot at the grand prize of $15,000,000, which is the PGA’s version of Powerball.

The historic Medinah course is 7,700 yards long and demanding; however, scoring over the first two rounds was surprisingly low with Hideki Matsuyama shooting 63 on Friday and breaking the course record. According to the analysts, heavy rains had softened the course and made it easier than Lindsay Lohan.

Matsuyama’s course record only held up for 24 hours, until Justin Thomas with God as his caddie carded a miraculous 61 on Saturday to seize a commanding six stroke lead. The stunning comeback in 2012 by the European team to win the 39th Ryder Cup has been called the Miracle at Medinah. Forget it. The probability of someone shooting a 61 on this course is the same as Charles Barkley fitting into a pair of size 36 golf slacks. Considering everything that was on the line, this was a miracle round.

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Thomas birdied the first five holes requiring only five putts. He eagled the tenth hole, he chipped in from the rough for birdie on the 14th, he holed out an 8 iron from 181 yards on the 16th, and he healed a leper on the 17th. After another birdie, he stopped to multiply some fish and loaves at the concession stand behind the 18th green. It was like watching the cinematic classic, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston. At the 15th water hole I expected the hazard to part and for Thomas to walk across to the green. Instead, he hit the ball into the water and still saved par.

I have always suspected Thomas of having supernatural abilities. Slow motion replays reveal that he actually levitates himself off the ground when striking his drive. At impact, his front foot is four inches off the ground and his back foot is nine inches in the air. No human can hit a golf ball in this manner. If I swing this hard, my follow through would end in a full somersault.

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Believe it or not, lightning struck twice on Saturday. In addition to Thomas’s shocking round, lightning struck the hotel that evening where Phil Mickelson and several other players were staying. Hotel guests claimed that even with his severe case of psoriatic arthritis, Phil was able to sprint past two bellhops, leap several small children, and stiff arm an elderly woman on his way to the emergency exit.

On Sunday, Thomas looked human again as he scattered his drives in the trees and rough like a squirrel hiding nuts. He was certainly not the “ultimate driving machine” and midway through the round was on pace to set the record for most spectators hit in regulation. Even his second shot on the 10th hole bounced off the tall green tarp concealing the traffic on Medinah Road. If it hadn’t struck the fencing, he would have been hitting his third shot from the back of a pickup truck. And then on the 14th hole, he had to take a divot the size of a Burt Reynolds toupee to muscle the ball out of the rough and onto the green.

In the meantime, Patrick Cantlay was applying constant pressure and slowly erasing Thomas’s six stroke lead. Dressed in black and showing no emotion he looked like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix or for that matter Keanu Reeves in any of his movies. Cantlay pursued Thomas like a natural born killer. His stare was cold and steely like the looks women in singles bars have been giving me for years.

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Cantlay’s pursuit was relentless. He was the Terminator. He was hitting every green in regulation forcing Thomas to scramble after every errant drive. Even when Thomas wisely laid up on a short par four, Cantlay ignored the greenside lake and hit a 331 yard drive into the heart of the green. Cantlay would sink a long putt and Thomas would match it. Thomas would sink a long putt and Cantlay would match it. They were dropping so many critical putts on top of one another, it was looking more like cornhole than golf. Finally, Cantlay cracked as he rolled his par saving putt passed the hole on 16 and extended Thomas’s lead to an insurmountable four strokes.

At the end of the day, it was nice to see Justin Thomas hug his parents and accept the trophy, the check for $1,665,000, and the number one ranking for the final playoff round. It was like manna from heaven. It was also nice to see bubble boys, such as Glover, Kokrak, Conner, and Im, scratch and claw into the top 30. Unfortunately, big names like Mickelson, Woods, and Spieth did not qualify.

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Under the new format, Thomas will enter the final round of the FedExCup Playoff at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta with a ten stroke handicap and will be heavily favored to win the 2019 FedExCup Championship. But who knows. miracles can happen.

Cover Photo via Instagram