Justin Thomas: “I’m one or two tournaments away from being in the top two or three again.”
Justin Thomas has a case of the what have you done for me latelies. He won The Players last March, but somehow doesn’t feel like he’s done anything significant recently. Talk about a high-quality problem. He calls his season a C- to C-minus. Does he have a remarkably short memory or is he just thinking about the one tournament he has played since September, The CJ Cup, where he finished 18th?
Regardless, he is looking to be even better than he has been and to improve his world ranking, which is currently 7th.
“It’s all about runs out here,” he explained before the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. “Jon’s been on an unbelievable run. DJ got on an unbelievable run. Brooks was on one. Collin’s been on one.”
Thomas thinks he’s due for one soon and feels that he has to stay in the right frame of mind for the time when it shows up. His plan is to just keep working hard, which usually translates into good play, which is usually followed by victories, which improves anybody’s world ranking.
This week, he is doing his best to not look at the ocean views and to keep the time of his practice sessions where they need to be for a good performance.
“I tried to not take this event lightly,” he said. “I tried to not just think of it as a vacation, although it’s kind of hard to at times, as beautiful as it is, and maybe wanting to cut practice sessions short to go hang at the beach or the pool.”
Right now, he said he’s suffering from some early season “rust” on his game. It’s a common condition among golfers, particularly when they have had a long, tough season and then take time off. Never mind the mental fatigue of the last two years.
After a 2020-2021 season, where he played 23 events followed by Ryder Cup, Thomas has only played the CJ Cup which was three weeks ago. The World Wide Technology Championship is his first week back since then. His goal is to get a victory before the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Kapalua.
But many off-season questions came his way.
As far as where he thinks he’s ranked in terms of the Player Impact Program (PIP), Thomas admitted that, in his view, he’s not in the same echelon as a Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson. But he thinks the PIP is a way to compensate golfers like Woods and Mickelson for the draw they bring to golf.
“It’s only going to help us because we’re going to grow our brands,” he added about PIP. “We’re going to potentially reach out to different listeners, whether it’s inside of golf or outside of golf. That will just not only help us, but help the entire game of golf.”
He added that there’s a big difference in being recognized in golf, which he feels he is, and recognized in the world in general the way Woods and Mickelson are.
But he’s also in the present.
“What’s most important right now is my career on the PGA TOUR and me playing well in Mexico this week,” he added.
As far as the new LIV Golf Investments organization with Greg Norman as commissioner, Thomas said he was probably least in the know.
“I know that this has kind of been a vision and a hope of his for a while, at least from what I understand,” Thomas said about Norman.
He did not mention Norman’s previous attempts to upset the PGA Tour apple cart by creating special events or a new kind of world tour. Those efforts date back to 1994, and the upshot then was the creation of the World Golf Championships.