Justin Thomas sported joggers or the first time ever under his new sponsorship with Greyson.
Justin Thomas was near the top of the leaderboard at the 2022 Valspar Championship and so was his style. Thomas recently picked up a new sponsorship with golf apparel brand, Greyson Clothiers and this was his first event sporting the new threads.
If your household wasn’t chatting about Thomas’ new jogger style pant during Saturday’s third round, this is your time to weigh in on the conversation.
JT wore a black polo, black joggers, black belt and a stunning pair of black and white Footjoy shoes that had him looking trendy.
If joggers aren’t controversial enough on tour, Thomas also chose to wear a pair of ankle socks with his toe-cap shoes.
When it comes to style, JT has always chosen more of a traditional look, and I was ecstatic to see a change in pace. Although golf has always been filled with khakis and plain polos, the standard is finally changing.
Justin Thomas wears joggers during the third round of the 2022 Valspar Championship. (Photo: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sport)s
It is 2022 and the younger generation is playing more golf than ever. These joggers are keeping up with a youthful lifestyle trend while maintaining a tasteful appearance with its performance fabric and belt loops.
The ankle socks complement the pants as joggers are meant to accentuate the ankle and increase a taper fit. The jogger pant promotes an athletic build and helps add more shape to the lower body.
I think we will begin to see this style of pants more on the tour from a variety of brands in 2022.
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Take a closer look at Sam Burns’ apparel worn during his latest PGA Tour win
Sam Burns won his third PGA Tour event in dramatic fashion, defeating Davis Riley on the second playoff hole of the 2022 Valspar Championship.
Burns won his first PGA title at the same event in 2021.
We’ve already gotten a look at the winner’s bag, so let’s dive into the champion’s closet to take a closer look at some of the apparel Burns donned while defending his Valspar crown.
As the old saying goes: look good, feel good, play good.
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After 3 long weeks of golf, I feel that taking this week to rest and prepare for the busy stretch ahead is best.
After a busy three-week stretch, Sam Burns needs a break.
Following three consecutive missed cuts to end January and begin February, Burns has been on a solid run of form with a T-9 finish two weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a T-26 showing at the Players Championship last week and a playoff win on Sunday to defend his Valspar Championship title.
On Monday morning the 25-year-old withdrew from this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, just hours before the bracket reveal at noon ET.
“I have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play. After 3 long weeks of golf, I feel that taking this week to rest and prepare for the busy stretch ahead is best. I appreciate the support and look forward to seeing everyone soon.”
Valspar Championship winner Sam Burns has withdrawn from the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Burns is replaced in the field by Maverick McNealy. Bernd Wiesberger is now the first alternate.
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The 25-year-old took down rookie Davis Riley with a 33-foot birdie putt on the second playoff to defend his title at the 2022 Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida. Burns, the fourth two-time champion in the event’s history, will take home a cool $1,404,000 for his efforts and now has three PGA Tour wins under his belt. Riley will pocket $850,200.
Check out how much money each PGA Tour player earned this week at the 2022 Valspar Championship.
“I’m doing a lot of really, really good things. I just need to keep putting myself there and it will start happening.”
Patience, Justin Thomas has occasionally admitted, isn’t the strongest weapon in his considerable arsenal.
It’s not that he gets testy and brusque when things aren’t going his way. It’s just Thomas knows the thin line between getting the job done and not forcing things to arrive at the desirable outcome is a tough one to walk.
Now, however, patience has to be the 15th club in his bag.
The 14-time PGA Tour winner and 2017 PGA champion fell short once again Sunday, when he fell one shot shy of a playoff between Sam Burns and Davis Riley, a fellow Alabama golf alum, in the Valspar Championship on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida.
While Burns won on the second hole of the playoff, Thomas left the grounds with his fifth top-10 finish in eight starts this season. But he still hasn’t won since the 2021 Players Championship.
“It’s coming,” Thomas said of an expected upcoming victory. “I’ve just got to be patient and be in the right frame of mind because you can’t force anything in this game. As soon as I start doing that you get down some rabbit holes.
“I’m doing a lot of really, really good things. I just need to keep putting myself there and it will start happening. I didn’t really do anything at all today and I very easily could have won the tournament. A lot to build on a, lot of positives, and we got a big stretch coming up, so I’m excited for it.”
After posting 5-under-par 66 in each of his first three rounds, Thomas just couldn’t get on any type of roll in the final round. He couldn’t get the putter to cooperate in the early going and then made a bogey on the par-5 11th when his second shot ended up in a small depression 54 yards from the hole. He pitched his ball over the green, then chipped much too strong past the hole and missed the par putt from 15 feet.
Another poor approach on 16 from 160 yards forced him to scramble for par. On the difficult par-3 17th, he pulled his tee shot into the greenside bunker but nearly holed his second for birdie. On the par-4 18th, the last nasty fang of the finishing stretch called the Snake Pit, Thomas drove his tee shot into the upslope of a fairway bunker and scrambled for par again.
“I didn’t make enough birdies. I didn’t hit the ball as well today,” Thomas said. “Got a couple of bad breaks, which is a bummer. I laid that ball up pretty nice there on 11 and just right into a hole there at the end of the fairway. That’s one I’m usually licking my chops, kind of pitching off the green. And then I was just, pretty much just trying to figure out how to hit the green.
“But everybody had to play in the same conditions, so it’s not like I was the only one that was dealing with that on the golf course. It just, I didn’t execute when I needed to.”
With a win, Thomas, 28, would have been the youngest player to win 15 PGA Tour titles since Tiger Woods in 1999. He would have also joined Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller as the only players since 1960 to win 15 titles before turning 29.
Earlier in the week, Thomas said, “To be perfectly honest, it pisses me off,” about his ranking of No. 8 in the world. The former No. 1 might go up a notch or two heading into next week’s World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, but he’ll keep calling on his patience until win No,. 15 comes.
“I haven’t been out here a crazy long time, but I’ve been out here long enough to know that stuff like this happens, and you’re going to go on times where things maybe aren’t going as well or some of the difference of those putts going in don’t go in and some of balls that bounce in the fairway bounce in the bunker,” Thomas said. “And then when you get on those hot streaks, those 10-month, year-and-a-half, two-year stretches, like I was on in 2017 and 2018, or like (Dustin Johnson has) been on, Jon Rahm, Collin (Morikawa).
“But you just have to be in the right frame of mind for it to happen. I can’t be all pissed off and moping around the golf course and somehow expect things to start going my way. I just have to stay in that positive frame of mind, so that way when it does happen I’m expecting it.”
Burns defended his title with a birdie putt from distance on the second playoff hole.
Sam Burns got bit by the Snake Pit but that didn’t poison his 2022 Valspar Championship.
The 25-year-old defended his title at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, claiming the Valspar Championship via a playoff with rookie Davis Riley after the pair each finished at 17 under. Following a pair of pars on No. 18, Burns claimed the title with a birdie from distance on the second playoff hole, the par-4 16th.
Burns is the fourth two-time winner at the Valspar, and the second to defend his title following Paul Casey in 2018 and 2019 (2020’s event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Last year’s Valspar win was the first of Burns’ PGA Tour career. The Shreveport, Louisiana native went on to win the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, his last victory on Tour prior to this week.
Riley shot a bogey-free 9-under 62 in the third round to set the 54-hole tournament scoring record.
Davis Riley stood on the par-5 5th tee during the final round of the 2022 Valspar Championship with a two-shot lead. He walked off the green trailing by one. He had gone 34 holes without a bogey before that hole.
The 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie made the only triple bogey of the week on No. 5 at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course at the worst time. After a wayward drive to the left, Riley struggled to get to the green, chunking an approach in-between a pair of drops before the struggles continued around the green.
Following a pair of poor pitches that failed to find the green, Riley two-putted from the rough to put the carrot on the snowman.
Riley shot a bogey-free 9-under 62 in the third round to set the 54-hole tournament scoring record at 18-under 195 and was on pace to set the Valspar’s 72-hole scoring mark, set by Vijay Singh in 2004 (18-under 266).
According to golf stats guru Justin Ray, it’s been almost nine years since someone posted an 8 or higher in the final round and went on to win.
Davis Riley is 1 off the lead. Earlier today he carded a triple-bogey 8.
The last player to win a PGA Tour event with an 8 or higher on any hole in the final round was David Toms in 2003 at Quail Hollow.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. – On a day when Wesley Bryan had to go low, he failed to make a single birdie.
Bryan, making his final of 21 starts on a medical extension after undergoing surgery on his left wrist last year, signed for 2-over 73 and a 72-hole total of 2-under 282 at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. He sits T-62 at the Valspar Championship.
“I’m just not good enough right now,” an understandably dejected Bryan said after the round.
Bryan, 31, needed to finish sixth or better this week to satisfy his medical extension and regain his exempt Tour status for the remainder of the 2021-22 season. Bryan made the cut on the number after making birdie at his final hole on Friday. Beginning the final round T-49, Bryan likely would’ve needed to shoot one of the lowest rounds of the week to make up ground. (Matthew NeSmith shot 61 on Friday and Davis Riley 62 on Saturday to make the final group on Sunday.) But Bryan could’ve retained conditional status in the Nos. 126-150 category by finishing 51st or better. Asked if the windy conditions might help his chances of improving his position on the leaderboard, Bryan said, “No chance.”
When Bryan replays what went wrong in his mind, he’ll start with his driving. He ranked last in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (-3.829) of the 72 players who made the cut this week. Bryan was paired in the final round with Tour rookie Austin Smotherman, who noted, “You could feel the pressure mounting on every hole. At the end, he needed every putt to go.”
All is not lost for Bryan to keep playing at the PGA Tour level. As the winner of the 2017 RBC Heritage, he still has past champion status. Despite being lower in the pecking order behind the 126-150 category, Bryan should get a handful of starts, including at next week’s opposite field event at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, before the FedEx Cup playoffs in August.
On Saturday, Bryan said he’s healthy enough and prepared to play as much as he can until the end of the season. He echoed that sentiment on Twitter on Sunday.
Been a long few years, spent most of it rehabbing shoulder and wrist. Thank you to everyone for the support this week….definitely felt the love out there. I tried my hardest….came up short. It stings, but I’m not done trying ✌🏽 https://t.co/g3tRcIrar1
Davis Riley birdied half the holes at Innisbrook Resort en route to a bogey-free 62 and a two-stroke lead over Matthew NeSmith.
PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Davis Riley heard the cry of “Roll Tide” several times during the third round of the Valspar Championship and couldn’t help but smile. Some of them may have even been for the 25-year-old rookie out of Alabama.
The majority of them were for his older, better-known, and more successful playing competitor Justin Thomas, who once showed around young Riley on a recruiting visit. On this day, it was Riley who deserved the majority of the applause in this friendly third-round pairing as he birdied half the holes at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. It included dunking a bunker shot at the ninth for birdie en route to a bogey-free 62 and a two-stroke lead over Matthew NeSmith.
“It was really impressive,” Thomas said. “It’s a big moment for a rookie and anybody, and he handled it like a rock star and made 9-under look very, very easy barring a crazy chip-in there on 9.”
On another warm, sun-soaked day, Riley improved to 18-under 195, setting the 54-hole scoring record and on pace to break the 72-hole scoring mark at the Valspar Championship set by Vijay Singh in 2004 (18-under 266).
Veteran caddie Lance Bennett joined Riley on the Korn Ferry Tour in July. The last time he’d caddied for that circuit? In 2006 with Matt Kuchar, which led to a decade together.
“I knew how good (Riley) was so I was like I’ll make the investment,” Bennett said. “There are a handful of guys on the range (at KFT events) that you know they won’t be there for long and he was one of those guys.”
Riley notched two wins and seven top-10 finishes during the 2020-21 Korn Ferry Tour season to earn a promotion for finishing in the Top 25 of the regular season. He’s recorded just one top-10 finish in 13 events so far, entered the week ranked No. 121 in the FedEx Cup standings and No. 399 in the world, but he’s learned from playing with the likes of Jason Day, Adam Scott, and current World No. 1 Jon Rahm during the final round of the American Express.
Davis Riley plays his shot off the 15th tee during the third round of the Valspar Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
Riley, who opened with rounds of 65-66, birdied his first two holes Saturday, wedged it tight at No. 6, and then stole another birdie after driving it left at the seventh. He punched a 7-iron below a tree that scooted inside 10 feet and canned the putt.
“That’s just one of those shots that you try to judge, and I judged it perfectly,” Riley said.
For his next trick, he drove it right, punched low into the front greenside bunker, and from 69 feet from the hole jarred it for birdie. Riley punched the sky with his right fist and high-fived Bennett.
“Those are the things that fairytales are made of for this young man,” PGA Tour Radio’s Mark McCumber said.
“It was on the up slope of the bunker so I knew I had to hit it pretty hard to get it back there to a back pin and I actually clipped it really good,” Riley said. “It was funny because I was walking up to get it out and Justin is just looking at me laughing, I’m like, yeah, that’s pretty lucky.”
Riley tacked on birdies at both par 5s – Nos. 11 and 14 – and two of the three par 3s on the back nine – Nos. 13 and 17. When Riley drilled his 17-foot birdie putt at 17 to reach 18 under for the tournament, Thomas gave him a thumbs-up as he walked off the green. Riley needed just 20 putts and gained nearly four strokes on the greens in shooting his career low on the PGA Tour. (He’s first in Strokes Gained: Putting this week as well as leading the field in SG: Off the Tee and SG: Around the Green.)
“They were all going in,” Thomas said. “They were going in with great speed right in the middle. Very, very effortless.”
Early on, NeSmith continued to play stress-free golf and looked as if he might run away with the tournament. He backed up his second-round 61 with four birdies on the front nine and was the first to get to 18 deep. But after going 45 consecutive holes without a bogey, NeSmith made four bogeys on his way to the clubhouse, including at Nos. 16 and 17 to finish with a third round 2-under 69. Both NeSmith and Riley are seeking their first Tour title.
Thomas, on the other hand, is chasing No. 15. He shot his third straight 66 and is tied for third at 15 under with defending champion Sam Burns. He’s long been impressed with Riley’s game and his work ethic and noted that Riley was the player he remained closest to at Alabama after he turned pro.
“We’re very, very similar in terms that we’ll work really hard and we expect a lot out of ourselves and have high expectations,” Thomas said.
They’ve shared texts back and forth this week, including Thomas saying on Friday evening, “About dang time we played together.” Thomas always has been an open book to Riley but a Thomas pep talk ahead of the final round may not be in the cards. “I hope he does (text me) tonight so I can ghost him so fast,” Thomas said. “I think the world of him, but respectfully, I hope I destroy him tomorrow.”
