Justin Thomas thinks he can win every tournament he plays in. And why shouldn’t he, having won 15 Tour events in his eight years atop the golf world.
But across those years, part of Thomas has changed. He’s matured, like we all do, which has come with a realization all Tour pros come to: Winning tournaments isn’t just hard — it’s really hard. A drought will teach you that.
Thomas famously won the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in a playoff over Will Zalatoris — a victory that only looks more stunning with time. Not only did he do it while hitting a shank in the final round, but he followed it by playing into one of the biggest slumps of his golfing life.
Most everyone followed along with that slump, too. You couldn’t help it once the 80s started piling up. There was the 81 at the U.S. Open — which he called “humiliating” — and then the 80 a month later at the Open Championship. Thomas sprinted to Minneapolis to play a tournament he normally doesn’t enter, and then to Greensboro for another tournament he normally doesn’t enter. All to prove that he could stand to help Team USA in the Ryder Cup.
Did he? Sorta. The Americans were thoroughly beaten, but Thomas’ inclusion on that team continued to seem controversial even into 2024 when Netflix’s Full Swing made his relationship with captain Zach Johnson seem like the main reason Thomas was selected with a captain’s pick. According to DataGolf, Thomas had bottomed out outside the top 50 in the world in September 2023, the first time in his career you could say that.
He struggled with his putting, really struggled with finding fairways, and wasn’t making up for it with his irons and short game. But fast-forward 12 months, and things have really changed. He contended a few times in the spring, nearly winning The AmEx. He parted ways with caddie Jim Mackay and teamed up with Matt Minister. He missed cuts in a few majors but elevated himself back inside the top 20 in the world. He missed the Presidents Cup but then announced he and his wife were expecting a baby girl. The only thing that hasn’t changed is his career win-tally. Which makes this week’s tournament, his final tournament of the calendar year, all the more interesting.
Because Thomas is just two shots back, tied for second place.
“I’m eager to win any tournament, I always want to,” Thomas said Friday at the Zozo Championship. “When things are going well, you feel like you should do that quite often and every year, but it’s just the reality of how difficult the sport is.”
He had just shot 64 to reach 10 under at Narashino Country Club just outside Tokyo. It was four birdies, no bogeys and a finishing eagle that he said, “didn’t honestly feel like a lot.” It has him on the doorstep of that 16th career Tour win, and his first in more than two years. We count win droughts in this sport for very few players. Thomas is one of them.
During his post-round press time, Thomas went on to show his age again when he said the talent level on Tour seems deeper than when he started, back in 2017.
“You have a lot of guys that are freakishly talented and have no fear and are hungry to win like all of us are.”
If that isn’t an idea all 30-and-older pros seem to share on repeat. He’ll feel plenty of those freakishly talented guys on the leaderboard this weekend, namely with Nico Echavarria, who holds the 36-hole lead. But Thomas won’t be alone in the 30-and-older crowd trying to snap a drought in Japan. He won’t even be the only player in the 30-and-older-Jupiter-Florida-friends-of-Tiger-Woods crowd trying to snap a bad streak.
Thomas’ pal, Rickie Fowler, is right there, too. A Friday 64, eight under on the week, four back.
Fowler did one better than Thomas in the win column in 2023, but has done no better than him since. On August 7, 2023, DataGolf ranked Fowler 8th-best in the world. This week he checks in at 118th.
The 2020s have been a rollercoaster for Fowler, who dropped in form beginning in 2020 and took more than two years to bottom out. But then 2023 saw him rise again, become a bastion of consistency and take his all-around skill-set into contention constantly. A win this weekend would end a more serious drought than Thomas’s — it would simply signify three consecutive tournaments of great form, the first time it would happen since his win last summer.
The third round of the Zozo Championship kicks off Friday night in America, with Fowler and Thomas teeing off at 9:35 p.m. ET and 9:57 p.m. ET, respectively.
