Justin Thomas says he’s playing “pissed off” this year.
Since winning the 2022 PGA Championship, the two-time major champion has shown only glimpses of the game that made him a household name. In 2023, he missed the FedExCup playoffs.by an inch on a hole-out attempt– for the first time in his career. He was slightly better last year with six top-10 finishes in 20 events, but still fell short of his standards.
However, his struggles have given him more gratitude for his success.
“I certainly underestimated winning then,” Thomas said during a press conference in the US on Wednesday season-opening Sentry. “I really felt like I was going to win multiple times every season until I lost it a little bit. It’s so hard to win here. Of course, the better you are, you can get away with more mistakes, but at the end of the week on Sunday you have to win the golf tournament.”
There are several areas a player can refer to to better understand his underperformance. Thomas feels that the fear of not returning to his dominant form has contributed to his.
“That’s the root of a lot of struggle, or regret, if you like,” said world number 19, “like maybe you should have done this, you should have done this, whatever it is. Obviously I wouldn’t do that, I didn’t do anything I tried or did, and anything I will do or try in the future, I don’t do it because I think it will make me worse, right? time I do it because I think it was right. The hardest thing is to accept that.”
To right the ship, the 31-year-old aims to hit more than 60% of his fairways after his driving accuracy was 55.19% on Tour last year on the T-154. If Thomas can pull that off, perhaps the desired results will follow.
And if that happens, it will contribute to his ultimate goal: making the U.S. Ryder Cup team this year.
Thomas has been a key player for Team USA over the past decade and made the team in 2023 via a captain’s pick from Zach Johnson. But Thomas was not part of the Presidents Cup team in 2024, ending the longest active streak among American players for both the Presidents and Ryder Cups.
This year he wants to secure his spot well before the matches at Bethpage Black.
“It’s terrible,” Thomas said when asked if he was motivated not to be in the same position as ’23 and ’24. “Unfortunately, I’ve been there for two years, and it’s not a fun place to be. Not just waiting for the phone call, but then not knowing how the phone call is going to go, so it’s a lot of anxiety. and a lot of tension.”
But he is confident he can turn the story around this year.
“I still fully believe I can have a year like Scottie (Scheffler) just had,” Thomas said. ‘There’s no reason for it: I think I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t think I could at least do that. I have a lot of confidence and ability in my game, and I feel like I’m working on the right things.”
And he’s looking forward to the challenge.
“I haven’t had a chance to play pissed off in a while,” said the 15-time Tour winner, “so I’m pretty excited to play pissed off a little bit this year.”
Leave a Reply