ST. LOUIS — Four birdies on the back nine of his opening round drastically improved Justin Thomas' week in St. Louis, where the 2019 BMW Champion posted a 3-under 67 to sit three shots off Gary Woodland's clubhouse lead.
The week started abnormally for Thomas, who copped to practicing harder than usual on Monday after coming off a T-47 finish at TPC Southwind last week and entering Bellerive No. 44 in FedExCup scoring.
Only problem for JT? The extra work backfired — at least in the short term.
"Just couldn't get anything going and then — more than anything — I left there in a way worse place mentally than I feel like I should have or would have liked or hoped," said Thomas of his time in Memphis.
"It was a day that I likely would take off, but I just wanted to come out and feel like I kind of had some positivity or something to build on," he added about the work put in earlier this week. "It took a lot longer than I planned or wanted it to. Really it was, honestly, a pretty terrible day, to be perfectly honest."
A terrible practice outing yielded positive results three days later for Thomas, who is one of 17 players in the field this week that competed at the 2018 PGA Championship when Bellerive hosted. He and Woodland each finished T-6 in that tournament at 10.
"I tried as hard as I could — that's literally about the only positive I had," Thomas told reporters about his performance Thursday. "I was really tired, I mean, I was tired [earlier this week]. So it's hard to obviously try to do something when you're in that frame of mind."
The fatigue felt from Memphis was so bad that Thomas' father suggested he leave Bellerive before the tournament began — ending a season early that was delayed from the start following Thomas’ back surgery in November.
"'I can't leave in this frame of mind. Like, leaving the golf course like this, I don't want to do that,'" Thomas recalled the conversation with his dad. "But eventually I just got to a point where I feel like I couldn't do anything and I was like, ,all right, I just got to start over tomorrow and that's what we did."
How to watch the 2026 BMW Championship at Bellerive Country ClubThe golf world’s attention turns to St. Louis as the top 50 players in the FedExCup standings will battle it out over four days.Thomas was in the first pairing with Sahith Theegala, teeing off shortly after 9 a.m.
Despite the up-and-down week, he was adamant that he was not done playing golf yet this season.
"I take a lot of pride in being able to make it to Atlanta," he said of the Tour Championship next week at East Lake. "It's something I want to do. I think it would be a pretty awesome accomplishment, in my opinion, starting in March and being able to do that with I feel like a pretty average season."
Perhaps motivating Thomas as much as getting into the pride it would feel getting top 30 in playoff scoring is a weird feeling that's been following him around all week.
"I was telling my wife it feels like it's the last tournament of my life," he joked with Golf Channel's Kira Dixon after the round. "It's play well or the season's over."
Fortunately, that's a fear Thomas' first round performance helped quelled.
He admitted to finding something with his swing motion on the practice range on Wednesday — a massive improvement to where he felt just 48 hours before.
"I wouldn't have guessed it on Monday or even Tuesday that I'd be here but that's golf," he said. "You wait to get into a rhythm and you build from there."
BMW Championship 2026: Round 1 tee times, pairings at BelleriveThe FedExCup Playoffs continue in St. Louis on Thursday when the top 50 players on Tour this year tee off at the BMW Championship.
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