GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA | Fourteen years ago, 16-year-old Justin Thomas showed up at the Wyndham Championship wide-eyed and excited about the chance to play his first PGA Tour event, a benefit of winning an AJGA event at Sedgefield Country Club earlier in the year.
Thomas shot 65 that first day, hinting at the career to come, before reality set in and he shot 72-71 to miss the Sunday cut. Rather than leave disappointed, Thomas left with a clearer vision of his future.
“I obviously knew I wanted to play professional golf and I knew I wanted to play on the PGA Tour and try to be winning tournaments out here, but that somehow took my want and drive and determination even higher after that week,” Thomas said Tuesday morning at Sedgefield.
“It was just the coolest experience. I’m like, ‘I want to do this every week, and I want to do this for a really long time.’ ”
Beyond grimacing while watching clips of his interviews in 2009, Thomas is back at the Wyndham Championship this week, grinding through the most significant downturn in his professional career.
Outside the top 70 spots in the FedEx Cup playoffs with only this week remaining to qualify, Thomas has discovered that his struggles have reinforced his enthusiasm rather than dulled it.
“It’s just making it not as big of a deal as it is and just having an understanding that just having good scoring and doing what I have in the past, and know that any week just one shot, one round, one tournament could flip it, and in a month, nobody’s talking about it anymore.” – Justin Thomas
“It’s a cool opportunity; it’s a great opportunity for me. I’ve been in the right frame of mind, I feel like, for the last kind of month or so. I’ve been in a lot better head space of just feeling like really good things are coming, but not as much expecting or saying when’s this going to be over,” said Thomas, the 2017 FedEx Cup champion.
“It’s just making it not as big of a deal as it is and just having an understanding that just having good scoring and doing what I have in the past, and know that any week just one shot, one round, one tournament could flip it, and in a month, nobody’s talking about it anymore.”
Thomas may be topic No. 1 as this Wyndham Championship begins. With the tour’s new playoff structure – only the top 70 in points advance to the playoffs, a reduction from the top 125 in previous years – the two-time major champion finds himself in 79th place, likely needing a top-15 finish to advance to the FedEx Cup St. Jude Championship next week.
He’s not alone.
Shane Lowry and Adam Scott are outside the top 70 and they are in Greensboro, not just for the sweaty summer weather, but to try and play their way into next week.
Billy Horschel is trying to play himself out of a miserable slump; Akshay Bhatia is trying to play his way into the top 70 after thinking he’d already done that with his victory at the Barracuda Championship; and Austin Eckroat, currently No. 70 in points, is trying not to lose a spot.
There is also the top-125 drama, but that’s not as relevant at the moment because players will have the remainder of the fall season to lock down their full eligibility for next year.
Thomas fell to 79th in points after missing the cut at the 3M Open in Minnesota last week, but he has embraced the grind. Beyond the playoffs, Thomas hasn’t helped his Ryder Cup chances with a forgettable summer.
Team chemistry is one thing – and Thomas has a lot of players pulling for him – but Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson can’t ignore form, especially if the trend lines are going the wrong way.
Thomas, who has never finished lower than 32nd in the FedEx Cup race, has missed five cuts in his last seven starts and has just three top-10 finishes in 19 starts this year.
“I feel like I’m going to play well this week,” Thomas said. “I also felt like I was going to play well at the U.S. Open, and I finished what I felt was about last place. [He was fourth from the bottom of the leaderboard after a second-round 81.] That’s also part of golf. You just don’t know what you’re going to get.”
The simple solution for Thomas is to hole more putts, which is easier said than done. He ranks 158th in strokes gained putting, which has added to the occasional lapse in his long game.
Thomas can point to the second round at the 3M Open last week at TPC Twin Cities, where he was safely inside the cut line, only to make two poor swings that cost him five strokes and a weekend tee time.
“There’s just guys that have played better than me this season, whether they’re ranked first in the world or 101st in the world. But now I have an opportunity to play well this week, get into the playoffs and to go to three courses that I love,” Thomas said.
“We’ve played enough of these tournaments, crazy things can happen any one week. Just kind of staying patient and if an opportunity comes, you’ve got to try and grab it.” – Kevin Streelman
Under the old format, Thomas would be comfortably qualified for the playoffs. The same goes for Kevin Streelman, who has made the playoffs every year since 2008. He moved up 36 spots last week at the 3M Championship, putting him 84th with one week to advance.
“We’ve played enough of these tournaments, crazy things can happen any one week. Just kind of staying patient and if an opportunity comes, you’ve got to try and grab it,” Streelman said last week.
“I think it would be depressing to be on a bad baseball team and like at the end of the season, you know you can’t get to the playoffs. Like Jim Herman a few years ago missed most of the cuts of the year, and then he goes and wins the Wyndham. That’s such a cool story and such a cool part of our game that makes us different.”
Looking at tape of himself here in 2009, Thomas shakes his head about how young he looked and sounded then. All these years later, Thomas says his enthusiasm remains.
“One thing I definitely have learned is you need to be in the right head space and expect some good things to happen,” he said, “and at least that’s where I’m at, so we’ll see.”