Justin Thomas Will Play Angry in 2025 With An Eye on Ryder Cup

Thomas says he previously took winning for granted, and he'll now try to find a new gear to continue his streak as a U.S. Ryder Cup linchpin.

Justin Thomas hasn't won since the 2022 PGA Championship. / Jack Gruber-Imagn Images

Justin Thomas says he's playing “pissed off” this year.

Since winning the 2022 PGA Championship, the two-time major champion has only shown glimpses of the play 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. Last year he was slightly better with six top-10s in 20 events—but still not up to his standards.

His struggles, however, have given him more gratitude for his success. 

“I underappreciated (winning) then, for sure,” Thomas said Wednesday in a press conference at the season-opening Sentry.  “I truly felt like I was going to win multiple times every season pretty much until I lost it a little bit. It’s just so hard to win out here. Naturally, the better player that you are, you can get away with more mistakes, but come the end of the week on Sunday, you have to win the golf tournament.”

There are several areas that a player can point at to better understand their subpar results. Thomas feels the fear of not returning to his dominant form has contributed to his. 

“That’s the root of a lot of struggles, or regret, if you will,” the world No. 19 said, “like maybe you should have done this, should have done this, whatever it is. I clearly wouldn’t, I wasn’t doing anything that I tried or did, and anything that I will be doing or trying going forward, I’m not doing it because I think it's going to make me worse, right, at the time I’m doing it because I think it was right. The hard part is accepting that.”

To right the ship, the 31-year-old is aiming to hit over 60% of his fairways after his driving accuracy was T-154 on Tour last year at 55.19%. If Thomas can pull that off, perhaps the results he wants will follow. 

And if that happens, it’ll build toward his ultimate goal: making the U.S. Ryder Cup team this year. 

A Team USA linchpin the past decade, Thomas made the squad in 2023 via a captain’s pick from Zach Johnson. But Thomas didn’t make the Presidents Cup team in 2024, which ended the longest active streak among American players for both the Presidents and Ryder Cup. 

This year, he wants to clinch his spot well ahead of the matches at Bethpage Black. 

“It’s terrible,” Thomas said when asked if he’s motivated to not be in the same position as ‘23 and ‘24. “I’ve unfortunately been in it for two years, and it is not a fun place to be in. Not only 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 stress.”

But he’s confident he can flip the narrative this year. 

“I still fully believe that I can have a year like Scottie (Scheffler) just had,” Thomas said. “There’s no reason—I think I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't think I could at least do that. I have a lot of faith and capability 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 the opportunity to play pissed off for a while,” the 15-time Tour winner said, “so I’m pretty excited to play a little pissed off this year.”