2017 CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES
(3rd of 45 events in the 2017-18 PGA TOUR Season)
Jeju Island, Korea October 19-22, 2017 Purse: $9,250,000
NINE BRIDGES Golf Club Par/Yards: 36-36—72/7,196
Final-Round Notes – Sunday, October 22, 2017
Weather: Partly cloudy with a high of 65 degrees. Wind NE at 15-25 mph with gusts to 30 mph.
Final-Round Leaderboard
Justin Thomas 63-74-70-72—279 (-9)
Marc Leishman 66-72-71-70—279 (-9)
Cameron Smith 69-68-73-70—280 (-8)
Whee Kim 68-70-72-72—282 (-6)
Justin Thomas defeated Marc Leishman on the second extra hole with a birdie at the par-5 18th.
Justin Thomas
Reigning FedExCup champion and PGA TOUR Player of the Year once again got his season off to a hot start, winning in his second start at the inaugural edition of THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES. Thomas narrowly missed an eagle putt on the 72nd hole to win, but earned his way into a playoff with Leishman.
After halving with pars on the 18th due to wayward drives, Thomas made a stress-free birdie to win in the first playoff of his PGA TOUR career. The win, which brings his career total to seven, didn’t come easy, as strong winds whipped Jeju Island, Korea all weekend. Thomas’ win comes at the age of 24 years, 5 months and 29 days.
With the win, Thomas earns 500 FedExCup points, which moves him to third in the standings behind Pat Perez and Brendan Steele.
Thomas held the first-round lead by three after a 63 on the first day. His win today makes him three for four in converting first-round leads to victory. For comparison, only eight of 46 first-round leaders went on to win last season (twice by Thomas, at the CIMB Classic and the Sony Open in Hawaii).
Thomas’ record when holding the 54-hole lead/co-lead:
Tournament Result
2015 CareerBuilder Challenge T7
2015 CIMB Classic 1
2017 Sentry Tournament of Champions 1
2017 Sony Open in Hawaii 1
2017 WGC-Mexico Championship T5
2017 Dell Technologies Championship 1
2017 CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES 1
With the win, Thomas improves to No. 3 in the Official World Golf Ranking, the highest position in his career to date.
Three of Thomas’ seven wins have come in Asia, his first two wins coming at the CIMB Classic in 2015 and 2016.
Thomas enjoyed a breakout season in 2016-17 on the PGA TOUR. His success began in the fall in Asia with his second consecutive victory at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, He later won back-to-back events in Hawaii at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open in Hawaii. Thomas’ 59 in the opening round of the Sony Open made him the youngest of seven players (eight times) to record a sub-60 round on the PGA TOUR (23 years, 9 months, 14 days).
Thomas’ season got even better in the late summer and early fall, as he won his first major championship at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. In the FedExCup Playoffs, Thomas was able win the Dell Technologies Championship, the second of the four FedExCup Playoffs events, and entered the TOUR Championship at No. 2 in the standings. With a runner-up finish at the TOUR Championship, Thomas capped off his season with the FedExCup, the fifth winner under the age of 30. Thomas joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth as the only players to win five times in a season, including a major, before the age of 25.
Thomas made his debut on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team at Liberty National Golf Club last month, where he recorded a 3-1-1 record in a victorious effort for the U.S. Team.
With his historic season, Thomas was voted 2016-17 PGA TOUR Player of the Year.
2017-18 starts-made cuts-top 10s-wins: 2-2-1-1
PGA TOUR career starts-made cuts-top 10s-wins: 96-72-28-7
Thomas’ final stats:
Driving Accuracy T39
Greens in Regulation T44
Putts T6
About Justin Thomas
Name: Justin Thomas
Height: 5-10
Weight: 145
Birthdate: April 29, 1993
Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky
Residence: Goshen, Kentucky
Family: Single
Turned Professional: 2013
Joined TOUR: 2015
Web.com Tour Graduate: 2014
Third Round Leader Notes
Third round leaders/co-leaders are two for three on converting to victory this season.
Marc Leishman
Australia’s Marc Leishman shot a final-round 70 and lost to Justin Thomas on the second extra hole. The playoff loss moves Leishman’s playoff record to 0-2, having previously lost to Zach Johnson (along with Louis Oosthuizen) in a four-hole playoff at The Old Course at St. Andrews in the 2015 Open Championship.
This week marked the first start of Leishman’s season; last year he opened the season with a fifth-place finish at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia.
Leishman spent a year on the Korean PGA Tour early on in his career winning the 2006 Jisan Resort Open. The three-time PGA TOUR winner had a career season in 2016-17 with two victories to finish 6th in the FedExCup standings. He also played on the International Team at the 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National in Liberty City, New Jersey.
Cameron Smith
Cameron Smith, who last week opened and closed the CIMB Classic with 8-under 64 on his way to a T5 finish, shot a Sunday 70 at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES to finish in third place, his best finish since he won the 2017 Zurich Classic of New Orleans (event was team format, and he played with Jonas Blixt). The third-place finish is his best on the PGA TOUR in non-team events.
Miscellaneous Notes
India’s Anirban Lahiri struggled on the last day down the stretch with a bogey and a double on the back nine, and finished T5. Lahiri’s best finish on the PGA TOUR was a T2 at the Memorial Tournament in June. He qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs and finished T9 at the BMW Championship in September, the same week he was picked by Nick Price to play in the Presidents Cup for the International team. Lahiri finished 51st in the final FedExCup standings in what was his second full season on the PGA TOUR. He played on the Asian Tour previously where he holds seven victories and won the Order of Merit in 2015.
At the first official PGA TOUR event to be held in Korea, Whee Kim ranked highest of the 16 Korean players in the field at 6-under-par for the tournament and finished fourth, his best finish since a T2 at last season’s FedEx St. Jude Classic. Kim has enjoyed a nice start to the season including a hole-in-one in the third round of last week’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia with a new car as the prize. It was Kim’s first hole-in-one of his career during tournament play.
Korean Players in the field
Place Name Score
4 Whee KIM -6
T11 Byeong Hun AN -4
T28 K.T. KIM +2
T36 Seung-Yul NOH +4
T36 Jinho CHOI +4
T44 Si Woo KIM +6
T44 Jung-gon HWANG +6
T47 Kyoung-Hoon LEE +7
T54 Sung KANG +8
T58 Young-han SONG +9
T58 Seunghyuk KIM +9
60 Hyungjoon LEE +10
T61 Sangmoon BAE +11
T67 K.J. CHOI +14
T72 Junghwan LEE +17
T75 Jeunghun WANG +21
77 a-Gyu Min LEE +37
Last week’s CIMB Classic winner, Pat Perez, shot the low round of the day on Sunday and the only bogey-free round of the weekend, a 4-under 68 and finished T5 to take the FedExCup lead over Brendan Steele.
CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and the FedExCup
CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES is a 72-hole stroke play event combining players from two official sanctioning bodies – the PGA TOUR and the Korean PGA. The inaugural event brings an official PGA TOUR event to Korea for the first time in history and brings together top players from the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup standings, top players from the Korean PGA and from the Asian Tour Order of Merit. The tournament is held at Nine Bridges Golf Club on Jeju Island. PGA TOUR members receive official FedExCup points as part of the 2017-2018 PGA TOUR season.
The CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES is the third event of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season and is part of eight events during the fall of 2017, all of which will award FedExCup points. After a seven-week break, the season will resume in January with the traditional swing through Hawaii before moving to the West Coast. The FedExCup Playoffs once again features four events and concludes in September with the TOUR Championship and the crowning of the FedExCup champion.
In addition to 500 FedExCup points and a two-year PGA TOUR exemption, the winner this week (if not previously eligible) receives invitations to the 2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions, a winners-only event in January, along with two major championships (Masters Tournament and PGA Championship) and THE PLAYERS Championship. The player would also earn exemptions into six additional invitational events on the PGA TOUR.
Every week is significant in the race for the FedExCup – three of the seven winners from the fall calendar of 2016 (Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama and Pat Perez) qualified for the TOUR Championship. The other four winners advanced through at least the second of four Playoffs events (Brendan Steele, Cody Gribble, Rod Pampling and Mackenzie Hughes).
Earlier this year in May, FedEx extended its contract as sponsor of the FedExCup by 10 years through 2027.
Bogey-free rounds:
R1: Chez Reave (66), Charles Howell III (67)
R2: Seung-Yul Noh (65), Luke List (67)
R3: None
R4: Pat Perez (68)
Scoring Averages at the par-72 NINE BRIDGES Golf Club:?
Front 9 Back 9 Total Cumulative
R1: 35.500 35.448 70.948
R2: 36.770 36.576 73.346 72.146
R3: 37.872 36.923 74.795 73.023
R4: 37.092 36.598 73.690 73.187
PICTURE COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES
