Justin Thomas Made a Major Change to His Putting and It's Paying Off at Wells Fargo

Thomas has drifted a bit since winning the PGA Championship last year, but a second-round 67 has him back in the mix at Quail Hollow.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Justin Thomas makes no secret of his frustration over failing to win more often. The reigning PGA Championship winner who defends his title in two weeks has no victories in the time since that win last year at Southern Hill.

The opportunities have been scarce, with just two top-10s this year and his best chance at third at the RBC Canadian Open the week before the 2022 U.S. Open.

Meanwhile, Thomas has slipped to 15th in the Official World Golf Rankings and 12th in the Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings—he was fifth after winning the PGA Championship.

So what is a man to do?

Try AimPoint.

The system employed by numerous players as a way of reading greens is something Thomas, 30, believed was necessary to help him make more putts.

“I felt like it was something that maybe it’s the missing piece, maybe it’s not,” said Thomas, who shot four-under-par 67 on Friday at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow to trail leaders Tyrrell Hatton, Nate Lashley and Wyndham Clark by a stroke. “I feel like I’ve been putting significantly better than the putting results have shown and I’ve noticed these last two days it just takes a lot of the guessing out and simplifies it.

“Obviously you get some specific putts that are left edge or left center or a cup or whatever, but out here at a place like this, you have a lot of big breaking putts and putts that require some feel to where I’m able to get a read kind of in a certain area. Then I’m able to use my feel and my kind of touch that I feel like I have to match the speed to that.

“It’s actually sped everything up for me; it’s sped my process up and simplified it. I’ve really liked it the last two days.”

Thomas said he got together with his putting coach, John Graham, and the inventor of the system, Mark Sweeney, at his home course in Florida for a two-day course on how it works.

Most golf fans have seen golfers who straddle the line of their putts and hold three fingers up with an eye closed. Max Homa, Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott are among a number of players who use the system.

Sweeney developed it some 15 years ago and teaches the system to other instructors. It’s a combination of getting the feel for the slope of the greens by using your feet and determining how much break to play. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but for players who adhere to it, they feel it allows for more confidence in where to hit the putt.

“I do all the appropriate work in terms of my start line, my mechanics and I just need to basically have faith and trust in my ability that I’m choosing right,” Thomas said. “At the end of the day whether it’s AimPoint, whether it’s reading the greens, it’s a guess; it’s just your best guess and I need to have more faith that my guess is really good.”

Thomas’s strokes gained putting for the tournament is a respectable 27th in the field, as he’s taken 59 putts through two rounds.

For the year, Thomas ranks 152nd on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting, losing an average of .225 strokes to the field. And yet he is eighth in strokes gained tee to green and 18th overall for this season, which has seen him post just two top-10s.

Scott, who is in a tie for fourth with Thomas as Quail Hollow, is among those early adopters of the system.

“I think I was really simplifying things and finding a good baseline so there was less searching going on, less guesswork in reading the greens from day to day,” he said. “I think it’s the first thing you have to do well in putting to putt well, so having a good routine and a baseline there in reading the green was important for me. I’ve stuck with it now for pretty much 10 years.”