Telfer's Thoughts

To the immense pleasure of his many fans, Justin Thomas finally won again on the USPGA Tour, taking out the Signature RBC Heritage at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.

As this was a Signature event it carried US$20 million in prize money, making it probably the biggest pay cheque in Thomas’s career. It was also his 16 th career win, but his first since 2022. Over his first 191 tournaments on this Tour, Thomas won 15 times... that’s a very high win strike record. Yet inexplicably he has remained winless from his last 58 tournaments. That has everyone scratching their heads. How could one of the world‘s leading golfers and a Major Championship winner go so cold for so long? For sure there have been good signs from Thomas so far this year, so to see him finally get over the line and win was not entirely unexpected.

There is, however, another important element to this win.

Early in his 3rd round, Thomas’s ball landed in a bunker. While picking up loose impediments from around his ball, which he is entitled to do, his ball moved. So tiny was the movement that not even the television camera was able to capture it. However Thomas saw it, and he was the only one. Not even his caddy could have seen what happened inadvertently because he wasn’t in the bunker.

To his eternal credit, Thomas had no hesitation calling for a rules official to whom he explained what had taken place.

Essentially what Thomas did then was call a penalty on himself. He was penalised 1 stroke for moving the ball after it had come to a halt.

No-one on the planet would have ever picked up what had taken place if Thomas had chosen to remain silent. But he didn’t. That is one of the delightfully peculiar aspects of this game. It is very easy to cheat in golf. You will find most golfers playing at any level will have the opportunity to discreetly move their ball out from under a bush or the like. It’s wrong and you should incur a penalty but if no-one else sees you give your ball a little kick, then who’s to know.

Very occasionally allegations of cheating by a prominent player surface and some even in the face of irrefutable video evidence remain defiant of any wrongdoing. Fortunately, such incidents are few and far between.

In the end Thomas’s honesty paid off because he won the tournament albeit by way of a sudden death play-off.

When interviewed after his round, Thomas said his decision to call in a rules official was a no-brainer. He intimated that the idea of winning a tournament off the back of cheating was totally unacceptable to him.

Furthermore, with his win Thomas has now moved up to 6th place on the Official World Golf rankings.

Ryan Fox did not qualify for the Heritage but a second official PGA Tour event took place in San Domingo in the Dominican Republic. For the 5th time in 8 starts this year Foxy made the cut, but failed to fire over the final two rounds again, finishing in a tie for 59th place.

It’s back to the American mainland this week for Ryan where he will team up again with Garrick Higgo for the Zurich Classic Teams Event in New Orleans.

Incidentally Higgo won the event in the Dominican Republic, which no doubt will enhance his confidence as well as Foxy’s as they prepare for this event.

Last weekend two of our other leading golfers, Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori, were competing in the China Open as part of the DP World Tour. Once again Kobori, the Kiwi rookie, turned in a sterling performance with 4 consistent rounds, finishing in a tie for 20 th place and another very productive payday. This lifts his winning on this Tour to just on E150,000 or close to NZ$300,000 in his maiden year on tour with still another 6 months to go.

He's already one of big success stories in NZ golf for 2025.

Daniel Hillier, after a good start, wasn’t able to maintain his early momentum and finished in the middle of the field.