TROON, Scotland — We knew what Justin Thomas knew, which was that the toss was coming. He was four under through 11, which was good for a two-shot lead that didn’t mean much this early in the first round of the British Open. Royal Troon’s outward nine holes are a Clysdale ride on a beach, gentle and graceful and smooth, even when the wind departs from its prevailing direction and into the face like it was Thursday morning. But at the turn, the horse becomes a bull and does everything in its power to buck the jockey from the saddle, and here was Thomas, holding on for dear life as gorse and heather began swallowing his drives. For posterity, he did stumble, taking a double at the 12th and a bogey at the 13th, and another wayward drive at the 15th threatened to take him off the Open leaderboard.

But Thomas knew what we didn’t. That this championship won’t be decided by who stays mounted. What matters is dusting yourself off and being willing to grab the reins once more. The two-time PGA champ, who’s been kicked to the ground often over the last year, finished birdie-birdie to grab the early Open lead.

“I played really solid, got it around,” Thomas said after a three-under 68. “I felt like I had great control of the ball. I hit a lot of fairways, which is a key I would say to any major, but definitely in an open being able to control the ball coming into the greens. A little bit of a hiccup in the beginning of the back nine but stayed patient and kept plugging kind of thing.”

Thursday was notable not just for what it was, but for where Thomas has been. He came to the Open last summer saying he was at the lowest point of his career, coming off the business end of a quick ejection from Los Angeles C.C. during his national championship … only things went lower at Royal Liverpool. Thomas’ opening round featured flubbed chips, pumped balls out of bounds, bunker shots that led to other bunker shots, and a quadruple-bogey 9 on his final hole. The final-damage was an 11-over 82, his worst performance in 111 major championship rounds.

“Yeah, I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking or how it was then,” Thomas said about last year’s woes. “I’m just worried about how I am now, and I’m very pleased with my game and know things are continuing to work in the right direction. I’ve just got to keep trying to play well.”

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He’s no longer in the wilderness. So far in 2024, he’s posted five top-10 finishes, with one coming at a major (T-8 at the PGA Championship) and three others at signature events, elevating him inside the top 20 in the FedEx Cup standings. It’s come as a result of solid ball-striking, Thomas ranking 12th in tee-to-green. But he’s also not back back, by his standards or the standards of stardom. The American Express was the only tournament where he truly contended and his putting has been a mess (154th in strokes gained). Thomas resides in an odd purgatory where he’s treated like one of the best with a performance that doesn’t live up to the bark.

At least by the golf cognoscenti in the United States. The R&A doesn’t have the same loyalties and fidelities to names that, in their opinion, don’t warrant marquee billing. Perhaps that’s why Thomas was placed well outside the featured pairings windows, thrown in an early wave with Matthew Southgate and Sungjae Im. Thomas has taken a bit of a P.R. hit too, collateral damage to Zach Johnson’s Ryder Cup captaincy. Thomas was already seen as a controversial captain’s pick a year ago given his then-struggles and didn’t help his cause with a 1-2-1 record in Rome. Months later, several scenes in Netflix’s “Full Swing” insinuated Johnson’s choice of Thomas over Keegan Bradley was due to Thomas’ prior relationship with Johnson and several key American players. This conveniently overlooks that there were a number of questionable Ryder Cup captain’s picks, and that Thomas was considered the heart and soul of Team USA’s success over the past several seasons. Nepotism was already the perceived root of the Americans’ failure, and the show turned the perception into reality. Thomas’ surprising break-up with caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay—who had come out of retirement only because Thomas had “all the shots”—only amplified questions about what had become of the once-ascendent alpha.

ANDY BUCHANAN

Thomas remains a fascination, however, because few have his ceiling and even fewer his talents. At 31, he’s both a throwback, adhering to the tenets of shot-making and vision and around-the-green dexterity, while conforming to the modern game’s demands of power and aggression. When things are going well for Thomas—which until last season, was often—he is a fusion of giddiness and swagger, exuding a persona that is best described as mild annoyance at what stands between him and where he wants to go. For the better part of the last two years, that giddiness and swagger has been absent, and in its stead is a player who knows his game isn’t there and is unsure of where it went.

“I feel like everything has been turning the right way, and I’ve been working on the right things. Just like I said, I haven’t really had much to show for it,” Thomas said. “That’s just how this game works sometimes. But I know that I’m close the way it is, and I’m just going to keep playing and not play for results, just play for my game, and it’ll take care of itself.”

The Thomas of Thursday looked like the Thomas of old. He was confident and brash, perhaps nowhere more on the back when the wind was up and the rain was coming down. Thomas takes pride in playing his best when the elements are at his worst, the conditions offering the opportunity to show he’s a shot-maker, not a slave to Trackman like so many of his fellow pros. While the field seemed perplexed at the wind (despite it mostly staying consistent), Thomas had the shots in his bag, playing safely to the fat parts of the greens. Just as importantly his putter finally woke up, gaining nearly three shots on the field with the flat stick.

The Open hasn’t been historically kind to Thomas, a T-11 in 2019 his only finish better than T-40 in seven starts. Links golf is not always fair and often volatile; detractors think it makes this championship gimmicky, although real ones know that’s how proper golf is played. But if there’s one knock on Thomas, it’s that he tends to lose his game when he loses himself, which doesn’t seem like the right mindset for this test.

“I don’t know, there’s a lot of factors and variables that go into it,” Thomas said, when asked about his mixed Open record, “but no, I thought I had to choose one style of golf or probably even one golf course the rest of my life to play, it would be a links course. It’s fun.”

There was patience Thursday, Thomas able to scramble to save par after a poor tee shot at the 15th and did the same after a poor approach at the 16th. Even managing a double at the 12th when it could have been worse was a win of sorts. The finishing red numbers were merely payoff for refusing to fall apart.

One round doesn’t mean Justin Thomas is back to being Justin Thomas. But it does help distance himself from the Justin Thomas of last year, and puts him closer to what could await this weekend. That’s all a player can ask for on Day 1 at the British Open, the chance to ride again with something on the line.

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Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.

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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com