Well, that Masters hangover didn’t last very long. In fact, you could say it never came at all, thanks to the RBC Heritage delivering a fantastic Sunday finish with a playoff between Justin Thomas and Andrew Novak.
While JT’s victory was a mighty popular one as he ended his very lengthy cold spell, Joel Dahmen’s heartbreaking, self-inflicted defeat in the Dominican Republic was drama-packed, but certainly falls into that tough watch category. Short putts count just as much as longer putts, kids.
As for what is to come this week in the golf world, it feels like a relatively big one for LIV Golf as it heads to a familiar track in Mexico while the PGA Tour does its best to try and get us to enjoy a team event in New Orleans.
We’ll get into it all in this week’s edition of Par Talk. As always, shoot over any thoughts and concerns to [email protected] or yell at me on Twitter @itismarkharris.
Wait, Justin Thomas Has How Many Wins Now?
Perspective is the word being used to describe Justin Thomas’ thrilling win at the RBC Heritage on Sunday, and to be fair, it checks multiple boxes when it comes to JT.
Justin Thomas Finally Wins PGA Tour Event With Thrilling RBC Heritage Playoff Victory
Prior to getting it done over the weekend on Hilton Head Island, Thomas went nearly three full years between victories, with the 2022 PGA Championship being his most recent. With that sort of drought and the simple fact that the sports world only focuses on winning, it’s only normal for folks to forget the résumé of players in Thomas’ situation, even if he’s a two-time major winner.
With his RBC Heritage win, Thomas now has 16 PGA Tour titles to his name. Not too bad for a player still just 31 years old.
Now, back to that whole ‘perspective’ thing. That eye-opening 16th win really does serve as a reminder of just how great, not just good, Thomas’ run was earlier in his career.
From January 2017 to January 2020, Thomas won 10 times. He followed that up with a WGC win in Memphis in 2020, a Player Championship in 2021, and of course his second PGA Championship title in May 2022.
Sixteen wins on Tour, two majors, a FedEx Cup, and PGA Tour Player of the Year honors make for a mighty strong list of achievements.
Thomas’ RBC Heritage win also marked his first victory as both a husband and father, which brings us back to that idea of perspective for the umpteenth time.
It’s on a smaller scale, but similar to Rory McIlroy finally getting his green jacket a couple of weeks ago potentially opening up the floodgates, one could see the same happening for JT in the coming months after finally getting back across the finish line for the first time in nearly three years.
Joel Dahmne, Buddy…
Joel Dahmen has become ‘the people’s champ’ out on Tour in recent years with his memorable appearances on Netflix’s ‘Full Swing’ and his extreme down-to-earth personality. He’s just a very easy guy to pull for, which made his collapse down the stretch in the Dominican Republic on Sunday a brutal, brutal watch.
Playing in the PGA Tour’s opposite field event, the Corales Puntacana Championship, Dahmen was the wire-to-wire leader with just three holes left in the tournament, but left the property without a trophy.
Things began spiraling on the 16th green on Sunday afternoon when he missed a par putt inside of two feet. That was the first of three closing bogeys, resulting in a T-2 finish and South African Garrick Higgo walking away with the victory and a $720,000 check.
There really isn’t much analyzing to be done when it comes to the finish in the DR. Dahmen completely handed over a golf tournament he had no business not winning, but in typical working man’s fashion, he gave a great, honest assessment of what exactly happened down the stretch.
“This one could take a while to get over. It’s one of those things, you learn more in defeat unfortunately,” Dahmen said after his round on Sunday. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. Like I said, I still think I’m in a little bit of shock. Felt like I was in a good head space. I was in a good headspace, but sometimes your body doesn’t cooperate.”
‘Winning is hard’ may be the most overused phrase on the PGA Tour, but for good reason, and Dahmen’s efforts on Sunday are just the latest perfect representation of it.
LIV Golf Heads To Chapultepec
LIV Golf’s scheduling decisions in 2025 have been questionable at best, having hosted tournaments the same weekend as the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open, The Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and The Players, but this week’s LIV Golf Mexico City does actually make all the sense in the world with the Tour playing host to the often forgotten Zurich Classic.
The Zurich will very likely still out-rate LIV’s event in Mexico City, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t an important week for the Saudi-backed circuit and the number of players in the field gearing up for next month’s PGA Championship.
The real golf sickos out there (raises hand) will also be intrigued to tune into the LIV event over the weekend for the golf course alone. Club de Golf Chapultepec was previously a regular stop on Tour, making it one of a few familiar courses LIV has taken over in recent years.
Joaquin Niemann, Sergio Garcia, and Jon Rahm sit one, two, and three in the individual standings heading into what is the sixth LIV Golf tournament of the season.
