- Justin Thomas won the RBC Heritage, attributing his improved putting to advice from Xander Schauffele.
- Thomas consulted with Schauffele late last year about his putting struggles, which had contributed to a winless drought.
- Schauffele helped Thomas realize he’d abandoned his previous successful putting techniques and become too mechanical.
Justin Thomas returned to the winner’s circle Sunday at the RBC Heritage thanks to some help with his putting.
He didn’t credit one of the putting whisperers but rather one of his competitors. None other than world No. 3 and two-time major winner Xander Schauffele was given kudos after Thomas ranked third in Strokes Gained: Putting for the week, gaining 5.512 shots on the field on the putting surfaces at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
“As funny as it is, a huge help was when I called Xander at the end of last year,” Thomas said during his winner’s press conference. “I think he’s one of the best putters in fundamentals, and not just putting but everything, and I was just like, ‘Can I just pick your brain for like two or three hours, just talk to you about putting?’ “
A balky putter had been one of the biggest reasons Thomas suffered a victory drought that stretched to nearly three years since the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills. Thomas ranked No. 174 in SG: Putting in 2024 and wasn’t much better in 2023 – No. 135 – when he failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
“You guys obviously know Xander, but he doesn’t leave any box unchecked,” Thomas said. “He said that day, he’s like, if it has anything to do with you potentially improving in golf, I’ve probably done it or tried it.”
The biggest revelation for Thomas? That he had abandoned what made him successful during his heyday and tried too many things.
“The more I was talking, I’m like, I don’t do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years, 2017-’18,” he said. “I was very, very regimented … how he said it is I had a home base and I had no home base. I had things that I did, but it was a very vague bag of things and there was no consistency to it.”
Thomas didn’t simply ride a hot putter to victory for one week. He entered the RBC Heritage ranked 40th in SGP and had been knocking on the door with two runner-up finishes already this season. [He vaulted 16 spots in the putting rankings to No. 24 for the season.]
Thomas also realized he had become too mechanical and robotic. “And that’s not me,” Thomas said. “I’m better off, I call it ‘pro-am putting,’ when it’s like I obviously want to make a putt that I’m hitting in a pro-am but I’m not grinding on read and thinking about all these different things. I’m pretty much stepping up, give it a look and go, and how often I make putts. It was probably more up here than it was anywhere else.”
The three-hour session with Schauffele has paid dividends. He enjoyed his best statistical performance on the greens in quite some time. According to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis, Thomas joked, “I may get an invoice (from Xander) in my locker.”
