Justin Thomas rode his luck to win the 10th hole and give his Atlanta Drive GC a three-point buffer en route to a dominant 9-3 TGL playoff victory over The Bay Golf Club on Tuesday night in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Atlanta will play the Xander Schauffele-led New York Golf Club in the inaugural best-of-three championship series next Monday and Tuesday. The winning team will split $9 million in prize money.
“As you can see from our match tonight and all of the matches it seems to be totally different each night in what we’re getting, but I like our team and like our chances,” Thomas said, looking ahead to the final.
The Atlanta trio of Thomas, Billy Horschel and Patrick Cantlay hardly missed a beat on Monday against The Bay’s international trio of Irishman Shane Lowry, Australian Min Woo Lee and Swede Ludvig Aberg.
Wyndham Clark, who has the best statistics in the entire league this season, was missing from The Bay team, unavailable due to a neck injury that kept him out of last week’s Players Championship.
Atlanta took a 4-2 lead after the nine holes of triples play, before Thomas went head-to-head with fellow major champion Lowry as the match switched to singles at the par-five 10th.
Both players found the imaginary fairway with good drives before Lowry hooked a 3-iron into water left of the green, turning his back in disgust even before the ball disappeared into a watery grave.
Thomas then struck a wayward 4-iron that appeared headed for a hazard right of the green, but the ball took a fortuitous bounce to safety, and he subsequently won the hole with a two-putt par.
“That is the luckiest bounce I’ve ever seen,” said newly-crowned Players Championship winner Rory McIlroy during a stint of guest commentary.
Cantlay blew the match open by beating Aberg with a birdie on the par-3 12th, when both teams “threw the hammer” to increase the hole’s value to three points.
“We had some stuff go in our favor tonight, which sometimes you need,” Horschel said.
Added Thomas: “We all played really well tonight. We all contributed.”
–Field Level Media
