How Rory McIlroy’s Masters win might end up helping Justin Thomas

FLOURTOWN, Pa. — Justin Thomas has been playing like a top-five player in the world for the better part of six months. The only thing lacking was a win. He checked that box at the RBC Heritage when he beat Andrew Novak in a playoff at Harbour Town Golf Links to snap a winless drought that stretched back to the 2022 PGA Championship.

In normal times, Thomas would enter next week’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club, where he won the 2017 PGA Championship, as one of the top favorites to win the Wanamaker Trophy. It would be easy for Thomas, who has a win, two runner-up finishes and five top-10s this season, to be speeding toward Charlotte with his chest puffed out as the front-runner.

Luckily for Thomas, he’s not the only red-hot star on the PGA Tour. Rory McIlroy has won three times, including completing the career Grand Slam at the Masters, and Scottie Scheffler just obliterated the field to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.

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That should allow Thomas to arrive at Quail Hollow a little under the radar as he tries to recapture the good vibes from eight years ago.

“I’d say yes and no,” Thomas said Wednesday at the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club when asked if he had to guard against being too confident. “It would be easy to buy into that. To be perfectly honest, Rory winning the Masters probably helped with that because I think — rightfully so. Scottie winning last week. Those two deserve all the spotlight and the favoritism that they’ll probably have next week. So I’m sure that is and was helpful for me.

“I’m sure I might feel a little bit differently when I get there, but like I said, I think I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of my peers play well that they may steal some of that from me.”

McIlroy’s Masters win could be the key to opening up the floodgates for him at major championships. With the career Grand Slam in the books and the major drought done and dusted, a freed-up McIlroy could be set up to go on a tear this summer.

With his own drought now a thing of the past, Thomas hopes a vintage JT run is in his future.

“I’ve gone a couple stretches there where I feel like I’ve kind of won five, six, seven times in 30, 35 events, and it’s there,” Thomas said. “It’s just sometimes things just happen when you win versus when you don’t win. I feel like I kind of saw a little bit of that at Harbour Town, of things going my way and maybe just making the putts and getting the bounces when you need to.

“I’m not necessarily expecting it. I understand it can happen. I know that I just need to keep doing what I’m doing to put myself in the best position for it.”

McIlroy’s Masters triumph, which included a roller-coaster Sunday round and a playoff win over Justin Rose, captured the golf world. Jordan Spieth called it the “hardest Masters to win” ever.

Thomas, a golf junkie, was locked into McIlroy’s victory, one that will serve as fuel for him and others to try and climb the ladder to one day join McIlroy in the golf pantheon.

“Obviously, Rory winning the Grand Slam was huge,” Thomas said. “It was inspiring to me. Obviously, it’s not like I didn’t realize I wanted to win a Grand Slam before that, but just that it’s even more motivating.”

That motivation will lead Thomas to Quail Hollow next week, where he hopes to arrive under the radar and leave with his third Wanamaker Trophy.