Justin Thomas Makes Me Look Good with PGA Prediction

It was looking like my prediction for who would be likely to win the PGA Championship was about as solid as the fluffy cottonwood puffs that have been blowing through Tulsa all week.  But Justin Thomas finally made me look good, and of course, as Al Franken used to say on Saturday Night Live, it’s all about me, Al Franken.

Lesser-known Mito Pereira somehow outplayed the big names in the field at the Southern Hills, obliterating the Jordan Spieths and Collin Morikawas and the Scottie Schefflers and the Brooks Koepkas, and he seemed to have one hand on the Wannamaker trophy by Sunday morning.  He wasn’t giving up on it.

When Pereira got to the 18th hole and was still leading, I was beginning to think I was an idiot for predicting that some known player like Rory McIlroy or Justin Thomas or Bubba Watson would somehow overtake him.  Then it happened.  The Big Mistake.

Pereira pushed his drive at the 18th hole into the creek along the right side. I was shocked, but decided maybe I wasn’t such an idiot after all.  Maybe all those truisms that veteran golf writers say to each other are truisms for a reason.  They happen more often than not.

Golfers who haven’t won a PGA Tour event are highly unlikely to win a major like the PGA the first time they play them. The only exceptions we have had in the last 120 or so years were Francis Ouimet and Bobby Jones.

So, whether it was nerves or forgetting momentarily what was going on, or just having his body overtaken by the situation, the entire outcome changed with that shot.  Very likely it was nerves.

“I thought I was nervous the first day,” Pereira said afterward. “Then I thought I was nervous the second day. Then I thought I was nervous on the third day, but the fourth day was terrible. I mean, this morning was tough.”

His big mistake came with his drive at the 18th hole, which he pushed into the creek along the right side.

“I don’t know what happened,” Pereira said. “You’re in such a stressful situation that, I mean, everything can change.”

And it did.  Pereira ended up taking a drop from the water, hit a third shot (second shot was a penalty stroke) to beyond the hole, chipped to 22 feet and two putted for a double bogey.

He said he wished he could take the shot again.  He was disappointed, yes, but what a comment he had on the situation.

“I finished third on my first major this year,” Pereira said. “I think I have to really just hold to that.”

Justin Thomas didn’t help me out at the final hole in regulation where he needed a birdie to tie the leader and throw the third oldest major into a playoff.  He faced a 13-and-a-half footer, but it eluded him.

Thomas, too, was thrown a lifeline by Mito Pereira, giving him another chance to win his second major. Nobody had to ask him twice. He was all over the playoff and defeated  Will Zalatoris in three holes of cumulative not quite sudden death.