Around the wider world of golf: Padraig Harrington won the Portugal Masters, his first ET win since 2008; Satoshi Kodaira won the Bridgestone Open on the Japan Golf Tour; Minjee Lee won the Blue Bay LPGA; and Tyler McCumber won the Lexus Peru Open on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica.
They say the best defense is a good offense. That certainly proved true for Justin Thomas as he pursued the defense of his CIMB Classic title.
He started the final round four strokes back of Anirban Lahiri, who lost his entire lead with one quad on the third hole. After that, it was a free-for-all as players unleashed their aggression on the TPC Kuala Lumpur. It's a course that has proven susceptible to low scores since the event arrived -- a tradition that continued this year.
One player after another surged to the front, only to stumble slightly as other players passed them by. Leishman, Fathauer and Matsuyama all made their own bids for the lead, but Justin was just too much for the field. His 64 was two shots better than anybody else on Sunday.
Justin set the tournament record last year at 26-under. He came up three shots short of that this year... but he was still three shots ahead of second-place finisher Hideki Matsuyama, who matched Justin stroke-for-stroke down the back nine but was too far back to catch him.
And in keeping with his pledge to donate $250 for each birdie he makes during this three-tournament span to the victims of Hurricane Matthew, Justin added 22 birdies and one eagle to bring his current total to $13,000 with one more event to go. No matter how you look at it, Justin has certainly earned this Limerick Summary:
The race for the top spot was on.The photo came from this page at PGATOUR.com.
Contenders would rise, then were gone
'Cause no one was trustin'
Their game the way Justin
Did. Down the stretch, he turned it on.
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