Caddie Travis Perkins talks about Sam Burns’ playoff win at the 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge.
“Conversations with Champions, presented by Sentry” is a weekly series from Golfweek in collaboration with The Caddie Network, where we take you behind the scenes for a chat with the winning caddie from the most recent PGA Tour event. This week: Travis Perkins, caddie for Sam Burns at 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge.
It went to a playoff but it was over before you knew it. Sam Burns knocked out good buddy Scottie Scheffler with a winding 38-footer from off the green on the first extra hole to win the 2022 Charles Schwab Challenge in dramatic fashion.
According to Burns’ caddie Travis Perkins, getting the flat stick out of the bag is always key for this duo.
“If I can get the putter in his hands, anything is possible,” Perkins told John Rathouz from The Caddie Network. The Schwab win was the third of the season for Burns and fourth in his PGA Tour career.
“I’m not saying it becomes easier but you learn how to deal with the emotions and what you’re going through inside and how your body is going to react,” Perkins said. “So I think all these wins that Sam has done, they’ve all been different. This one, coming from behind the way he did … you just never know what’s going to happen. And when you get into a playoff — it’s hard to win out there — you just try to do everything you can to keep yourself in it and try not to make mistakes.”
Back to that putt that Burns buried from way downtown.
“We were only a couple of paces away in regulation from where that ball ended up in the playoff so he kinda had an idea of what it was doing,” Perkins said. “After he made it, he came over to me and he goes ‘I didn’t think that was going to get to the hole’ but the greens had picked up some speed because they dried out so much. He thought he left it short.”
“I was eight back. I was eight back with 10 holes to go. That’s unfathomable.”
Justin Thomas took an unusual approach to celebrating his stunning, come-from-behind victory in last week’s PGA Championship.
He reveled as little as possible.
“I have a golf tournament this week, and I’m just trying to perform and play as well as I possibly can,” Thomas said Wednesday at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, home to the Charles Schwab Challenge.
“Hopefully give us something else to celebrate.”
So there was no quick trip to Las Vegas following his three-hole playoff win against Will Zalatoris, no over-the-top party long into the following night despite winning his second major title Sunday; it was his 15th PGA Tour triumph, which put him alongside Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson as the only players since World War II to win at least 15 PGA Tour titles and two majors before turning 30.
Instead, the world No. 5 kicked up his heels at every opportunity.
“Obviously the last couple days have just been filled with rest and just trying to kind of recoup and get my mind and body back and ready to go come tomorrow morning,” Thomas said. “Had a nice early morning this morning, but I’ll just relax this afternoon and be good to go tomorrow (for the first round).
Justin Thomas of the United States poses with the Wanamaker Trophy after putting in to win on the 18th green, the third playoff hole during the final round of the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club on May 22, 2022 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
“Obviously I want to enjoy it and I don’t want to just act like it didn’t happen because it did, but at the same time I have a week next week off potentially to just enjoy it and have some good times with my family and friends if we choose to.”
When Thomas does get around to celebrating this victory, part of the fun likely will include watching the TV coverage of the final day, when he stormed back from eight shots back with four birdies in his final 10 holes before toppling Zalatoris by one shot in the three-hole aggregate score playoff.
“I haven’t had a chance to watch like the full coverage on Sunday, which I’d like to, but I did happen to see when I was putting on nine, I was eight back. I was eight back with 10 holes to go. That’s unfathomable,” Thomas said. “If I was looking at leaderboards, I probably would not have thought I even had a chance to win. It’s a huge learning lesson for me. You’ve got to play golf. Those majors and in golf tournaments, anything can happen.
“I just kind of kept plugging along, and somehow it happened.”
He’ll try and do the same this week. Thomas is making his third start in the tournament – he tied for 40th and 10th in 2020 and 2021, respectively. If he needs anything to get his juices flowing, he just has to look around and take in Colonial Country Club, an old-school, tree-lined layout rich in history.
“This course is right in front of you,” he said. “You can play it very conservatively and put the ball in the fairway, kind of play to the doglegs or you can take a lot of drivers and kind of send it over some bunkers or over some doglegs and potentially make it a lot shorter.
“Playing from the fairway is very, very important here. The greens were very soft this morning with the rain last night and I guess into this morning, but with the wind that they potentially have forecasted, it can firm up by the weekend, which makes this place play pretty difficult.”
And if so, Thomas can call on his imagination and creativity and his ability to work shots in different shapes and heights.
“It just puts a premium on ball-striking and playing good golf,” Thomas said. “I just like the old-school designs because this place is a good example of you don’t need length to make a golf course hard. I just like the opportunity to play holes different ways, just putting a premium on hitting the ball in the fairway, putting a premium on just having control of your ball and understanding where you can miss it, where you can’t miss it.
“Because I think a lot of places nowadays is just kind of bomb it, send it as far as you can and just get it somewhere around the green, and the greens are so big that you can usually get up-and-down versus a place like here, they’re so small, have some very subtle undulation, that you just have to be smart around here.”
Jordan Speith feels comfortable on the greens at Colonial and is ready for a big putting week on familiar greens.
Go figure.
Last month, Jordan Spieth had one of the worst putting weeks in his PGA Tour career and defeated Patrick Cantlay in a playoff at the RBC Heritage.
“I won this golf tournament without a putter,” he said after averaging -0.636 for the week in strokes gained putting and ranking 60th in the category.
Last week, Spieth said he felt like he putted the best he’s putted all year during the PGA Championship and, after coming in 1-2 in his last two starts, tied for 34th.
“It just doesn’t show on the stats, but it was the most free-flowing strokes I’ve had,” Spieth said.
So, what is in store for the world No. 9 this week in the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas?
“I think it’s a matter of time before the lid comes off and I start to pour some in,” Spieth said Wednesday at Colonial. “A little disappointing that didn’t happen last week. I misread a lot of putts. Out here, I don’t really have the excuse of misreading putts because I should know where most of them go having played this course 60 to 75 times. I’m excited about that.”
Jordan Spieth with the trophy after winning the 2016 Dean & DeLuca Invitational at Colonial Country Club.
Spieth has always been excited to play Colonial. In nine starts, he has a win in 2016, runner-up finishes in 2015, 2017 and 2021 and three other top 10s. Only once has he finished out of the top 15.
“I think the results show that I love this place,” he said. “It seems to, for whatever reason, fit my game really well and I really enjoy playing it. It requires some precision in the wind off the tee, obviously hitting fairways being of huge importance here, given how difficult it is out of the rough.
“But then I’ve putted well here. I love the slopes of the greens and seem to find success regardless of form coming in some years, and some years I’m in form coming in and then play well here.
“I’ve been playing really well, and last week was kind of just a little minor step back,” Spieth added. “I’m looking to try and tighten some things up and get back into contention. I had a few chances to win events, but that was kind of about it this year, even though I’ve played really good golf. So, I’m trying to maybe play a little more consistently in the top 10 on the weekend, and you never know when it goes your way sometimes.”
Thomas and Greyson Clothiers announced a partnership in March of 2022, and JT has been repping the brand ever since. Merging fashion with sport, Greyson’s mission is to create products that are suitable for the modern lifestyle. Averee Dovsek believes the partnership between the two was the best case scenario for Thomas’ style.
We’ve already taken a look into JT’s winning equipment, so now let’s take a deeper dive into the champion’s closet and see how Justin dressed for success at the 2022 PGA Championship.
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.
TULSA, Okla. — Bubba Watson announced on social media that he’s going to miss the next four-to-six weeks after tearing the meniscus in his knee.
That makes him unlikely to play in the next major championship, which is the U.S. Open in June.
Watson shot a 63 last Friday in the second round at the PGA Championship to tie the low score in men’s major championship history. Three days later, he posted a message of congratulations to Justin Thomas, who outlasted Will Zalatoris on Sunday at Southern Hills Country Club to capture his second Wanamaker Trophy.
In that same message, Watson revealed that he’s going to miss some time.
Also I’m disappointed to have to pull out of @CSChallengeFW. Recent knee issues turned out to be a torn meniscus so I’ll be out for 4-6weeks. Hope to be back soon! pic.twitter.com/PXwjCAgsqY
The next four PGA Tour stops are the Charles Schwab Challenge (which is this week; Watson has already withdrawn), followed by The Memorial, RBC Canadian Open and the U.S. Open, which is June 16-19.
The tournaments after that are The Travelers and the John Deere Classic, followed by the opposite-field events at the Barbasol Championship and the DP World Tour’s Genesis Scottish Open, which is the final event before the Open Championship.
It would appear that if Watson is back after six weeks, he could be ready to play at St. Andrews, July 14-17. In his tweet, Watson made no mention of when the injury occurred, which knee it was or whether he intends to have surgery.
It’s hard to say how you would handle missing out on $150,000 if you haven’t been in those shoes. So there’s probably a thing or two be learned from how a Twitter user named Rufus is handling his bad beat on the PGA Championship.
On Friday, Rufus bet $500 on the relative unknown Mito Pereira to win the tournament at +30000 odds, for a payout of $150,000. Things were headed in the right direction for Rufus until Pereira blew his one stroke lead on the final hole Sunday with a double-bogey.
Justin Thomas and Will Zalatoris passed him on the leaderboard to force a playoff, Thomas won and celebrated by hitting the dab, and Rufus — who didn’t hedge — was left holding the bag.
But instead of sulking over the earnings that were so so close, the self-described professional sports bettor got incredibly philosophical. We got to see on Twitter how he processed the admittedly painful loss, and here are some of the lessons he shared from it.
TULSA, Okla. – Justin Thomas rested his left hand against a handle of the Wanamaker Trophy during his winner’s press conference for the 104th PGA Championship with the insouciance of a man who had just been reunited with an old friend.
He had reacquired possession of the gigantic silver trophy for the first time since 2017, back when it was handed out in August. But his playoff victory over Will Zalatoris on Sunday was not without its shaky moments, none more so than when he shanked his 5-iron tee shot at the par-3 sixth hole.
“I just cold shanked it,” Thomas conceded afterward. “I don’t really know how else to say it. It was the best bogey I’ve ever made in my life, that’s for sure.”
Caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay noted that Thomas caught “a great break” that the ball didn’t go into a penalty area, namely the creek that meanders through the hole.
“He had a great lie and 118 yards but he went under it and hit a tree very hard and that could’ve gone anywhere and it went back into the bunker. Then he hit one of his three or four best shots of the day, a cutty pitching wedge from out of the bunker from about 100 yards to 20 feet and then he makes it.”
It turned out to be the final bogey Thomas would make that day. How did he right the ship? Bones explained: “You want something out there almost to take your mind off it and to have some fun,” he explained. “He hits this great drive on the seventh hole and I get the yardage and we’ve got to hit 5-iron again.”
For those scoring at home, that would be the club that Thomas dropped in disgust on impact and had made him look like a Sunday Joe and not a soon-to-be two-time major champion.
“So, very next hole, water right of the green, green sloping left to right, he’s got to step up and hit a shot with the club he shanked 20 minutes ago,” Bones continued, “and he hit arguably his best shot of the day. We were remarking that it was his best full swing of the week and he hit it to 10 feet.”
ShotLink had it at 9 feet, 4 inches. And from there through the playoff, Thomas was money.
Justin Thomas speaks to the media after winning the 104th PGA Championship and reclaiming possession of the Wanamaker Trophy for the next year. (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
“It was a hang-in-there day,” Bones added. “It seemed like the type of golf course that you could come from way back.”
They did just that, erasing a seven-stroke deficit as Mito Pereira and others faltered down the stretch. When it was all said and done and the trophy belonged to Thomas again, Thomas and Mackay joked about the shank, just as JT emptied his pockets and strapped on his Rolex watch before the official trophy ceremony.
“It was a shanky-barkie-sandy,” Bones cracked. “At least that’s what we’d call it at the club.”
As Thomas said in his CBS-TV interview, “I’ve never won a tournament shanking a ball on Sunday, so that was a first, and man, I would really like it to be a last.”
TULSA, Okla. – Jim “Bones” Mackay received some help unscrewing the 18th-hole flag from the stick not long after his boss, Justin Thomas, had tapped in to beat Will Zalatoris in a playoff to win the 104th PGA Championship at Southern Hills.
It was for a moment such as this that Bones, 56, dropped the mic for NBC Sports and Golf Channel and returned to caddying for the one player he’d told his wife if he ever got the chance to work for, they’d be having a conversation.
When Thomas approached Bones shortly after the 2021 Ryder Cup and asked him to become his full-time caddie, it was an easy decision for Bones. Thomas wanted him on the bag for moments such as Saturday evening, when a dejected Thomas sensed that his 4-over 74 in the third round had cost him the tournament. Despite the fact that Thomas would be entering the final round trailing by seven strokes, Bones delivered the tough love that was necessary.
“I’m fully confident in saying that I wouldn’t be standing here if he didn’t give me that, wasn’t necessarily a speech, but a talk, if you will,” Thomas said. “I just needed to let some steam out. I didn’t need to bring my frustration and anger home with me. I didn’t need to leave the golf course in a negative frame of mind. I just went down, ‘I played pretty well yesterday for shooting 4-over, and I felt like I’d played terrible.’ And he was just like, ‘Dude, you’ve got to be stop being so hard on yourself. You’re in contention every single week we’re playing.’ ”
Bones continued: “It’s a major championship. You don’t have to be perfect. Just don’t be hard on yourself. Just kind of let stuff happen, and everything is trending in the right direction. So just keep staying positive so that good stuff can happen.”
“I left here in an awesome frame of mind,” Thomas said.
On Sunday, after taking a few last putts on the practice green, Thomas handed his putter back to Bones. No words were exchanged, but Thomas calmly took the fresh glove Bones had rested over an alignment stick and started walking towards the golf carts that were shuttling players and caddies to the first tee. Kids along a railing called out to him, but his mind was elsewhere. Instead, he slapped the glove against his right thigh. Hard. He did it again, and then a third time. He was in the frame mind to pounce if any of the inexperienced leaders faltered.
It didn’t look that way early when Thomas made two bogeys in his first six holes, including a shank off the tee at the par-3 sixth hole that Bones later joked was “a shanky, barkie, sandy.” Thomas found his stride and shot 67, the only player in the last seven groups Sunday to break par, and when he ended up in a three-hole playoff, he went for the kill.
“Bones did an unbelievable job of keeping me in the moment,” Thomas said.
Justin Thomas and Bones Mackay on the 11th hole during the final round of the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club.. (Photo: Matt York/Associated Press)
Winning majors is old hat for Bones, who had won five previously during his 25 years on the bag for Phil Mickelson. But he didn’t have the caddie trophy to show for it.
As detailed in the new book, “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and unauthorized) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” Mickelson had a tradition where he gave his winning flag from 18 to his grandfather, a former Pebble Beach caddie, who hung them on his kitchen wall. Mickelson’s first major flag from the 2004 Masters went there, four months after his death.
“Mackay understood and respected that gesture, but 19 more Tour victories would follow, including four majors and he never got to keep a single flag,” Shipnuck wrote.
“That’s a giant f— you to a caddie,” Shipnuck quotes someone very close to Mackay. “When Phil wins the Masters, he gets the green jacket, the trophy, the big check, all the glory. He had to take the flags, too?… For Phil not to follow the tradition was hugely disrespectful.”
During the week of the WM Phoenix Open, Bones hosted a dinner party for players and caddies at his home and without fail he would be asked, “Where are the flags?”
Shortly after their break-up in the summer of 2017, Mickelson overnighted to Bones the major flags they had won together.
“But Phil autographed them in comically large letters, which Mackay felt disfigured the keepsakes,” Shipnuck reported and noted that Bones never displayed them in his home.
Bones didn’t participate in Shipnuck’s book, and when asked to confirm these details from Shipnuck’s book this week, he declined. But he also didn’t refute them.
It is rich with irony that Bones was on the bag for the winner at the PGA where Mickelson was supposed to be the defending champion and elected not to play. On Sunday, Bones tucked the 18th flag into the left pocket of his shorts. When asked if he knew where he would display it, he smiled wide.
“I’ve got a spot in mind,” he said, saying he’d have to get approval from his wife, “but somewhere that my friends can come around and see it.”
The top three finishers at Southern Hills, site of the 2022 PGA Championship, earned more than $1 million.
TULSA, Okla. — The 2022 PGA Championship purse was boosted to $15 million dollars this year by the PGA of America.
That raised the first-place check to the whopping sum of $2.7 million. In fact, the top three finishers at Southern Hills Country Club earned more than $1 million.
That first-place check is going to Justin Thomas, who won the PGA for the second time. He defeated Will Zalatoris in the three-hole aggregate playoff.
The 2021 PGA Championship winner, Phil Mickelson, took home $2.16 million.
Take a look at the complete final money list from the second men’s major of the year.
Golfweek has rounded up some of Justin Thomas’ best looks throughout his new sponsorship.
TULSA, Okla. — Justin Thomas became a part of the Greyson Clothiers Wolfpak and started sporting their threads earlier this year. This partnership was great for JT’s style as it allowed him to express himself with more creativity on the golf course.
After being dismissed from Ralph Lauren in 2021, Thomas has had the opportunity to wear more of a modern look on the course. Thomas has been seen in hoodies, joggers and bold printed polos.
Fans were not in favor of Thomas’ new look at first, but it sure looks good up against the Wanamaker Trophy following his win at the 2022 PGA Championship. Golfweek has rounded up some of Thomas’ best looks throughout his new sponsorship.
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage
