The advent of LIV Golf has been the biggest story in golf for the last several months, and especially lately, as lawsuits have been filed, responses have been recorded and even an initial ruling in favor of the PGA Tour has been made — all in the span of a couple of weeks.
It’s a lot to take in, not just for golf fans but also for the players themselves, who are asked about the drama at seemingly every opportunity.
Justin Thomas has been a vocal PGA Tour supporter since the beginning, but in his pre-tournament press conference at this week’s FedEx Cup Playoffs kickoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, he expressed his growing fatigue with the topic.
“It’s unfortunately just taking up the golf world a little bit and taking away from great storylines,” he said. “I think I saw Scottie [Scheffler] came in and did his interview yesterday and I’m sure he got asked about what was going on, and he’s had one of the best seasons of all time. I mean, the most money that’s ever been earned and winning the FedExCup by a mile and I’m sure there weren’t as many questions about that as there should have been. It’s little things like that to where it takes away from the big picture of what’s going on on the PGA Tour.”
Thomas then recounted another comical story to illustrate just how difficult it is for him to avoid LIV chatter.
“You can’t avoid it,” he said. “A funny story, just a couple weeks ago I had some really close friends get married and I was at the wedding and at the reception. I was on the way to the bathroom and got stopped by someone, start talking to me, saying he was a fan, it was great, and bam, next thing you know starts asking me questions about that and my detour, instead of going to the restroom, went straight to the bar to get a drink, because like I am not in the mood for this right now.
“It’s just little stuff like that where you just would prefer not talk about it,” he said.
Thomas, winner of the 2017 FedEx Cup, remains one of the favorites to win this year. He’s ranked eighth in the standings, about 1,800 points behind leader Scottie Scheffler.
The FedEx Cup St. Jude Championship begins Thursday. Thomas goes off at 9:10 a.m. with Tony Finau and Cameron Young.