Justin Thomas Has a Major(s) Problem, While Golf's Younger Stars are Shining

The world No. 8 hasn't won in more than a year and his only major title was nearly five years ago. With the PGA in two weeks, Mike Purkey wonders if Justin Thomas can get back in the conversation.

Scottie Scheffler was 21 years old in August 2017 when Justin Thomas won the PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. He made the cut and was the low amateur at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills, and a month later he would play for his country in the Walker Cup.

He was about to be a senior at the University of Texas and having watched the 24-year-old Thomas capture his first major championship, Scheffler might well have thought: “Could I be the next Justin Thomas?”

Thomas was less than three weeks away from turning 29 when Scheffler won last month's Masters at Augusta National, which meant that he and Scheffler now had the same number of major titles. And Scheffler was the No. 1 player in the world.

Many people believed that majors would come with eye-opening regularity for Thomas after 2017. Since that PGA title, Thomas has won nine PGA Tour events, including the 2021 Players Championship. But not another major.

Thomas might well have thought as the 25-year-old Scheffler slipped on the green jacket: “Wish I was the next Scottie Scheffler.”

While it might be premature to believe that Thomas is at a career crossroads at age 29, things happen much faster at the top levels of professional golf these days. Of the top 10 players in today’s Official World Golf Ranking, seven are under 30.

The careers of Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and Cameron Smith are in full flight. They will be the favorites for the rest of the year’s upcoming majors.

Thomas is No. 8 in the ranking, which in usual times would at least place him in the conversation. But the times are far from usual. Thomas hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since that Players title last March and a year can look like a lifetime.

When the PGA Championship commences in two weeks at Southern Hills Country Club near Tulsa, Oklahoma, most of the oxygen will be used up by Scheffler and Tiger Woods, who is expected to be in the field after a reconnaissance mission last week at Southern Hills.

Thomas will be an afterthought, which just sounds unthinkable, given his seemingly endless reservoir of talent. And while he has been given the benefit of the wisdom of Woods, who calls Thomas his “little brother,” Tiger apparently hasn’t been able to bestow on Thomas the ultra-focused ruthlessness for four weeks a year that won Woods 15 majors.

Thomas will apparently need to find that on his own and where he finds it is anyone’s guess, particularly his. He admits in public what is whispered in private: He’s a major underachiever. Although he has five other top-10 finishes in majors, he has never seriously threatened to win another one.

“I know I have,” he said at the Masters about the u-word. “I have not even close to performed well in my entire career in majors. In terms of a result standpoint, which is at the end of the day all that matters when it comes to tournaments is how you finish, I feel like I've performed very, very poorly.”

Admitting your problem is the first step in recovery but this is not Thomas’ problem. It’s the result of the problem, which goes nowhere without a solution. And thus far, Thomas hasn’t found one.

After Thomas shot an inexplicable first-round 76 at the Masters, he said, “That was, far and away, the most pissed off I’ve been after a round in a really, really long time.”

Anger can be a great motivator and Thomas shot 67 the next day, putting him in the top 10 but too far away from Scheffler to matter. Playing mad has a short half-life and sooner than later, the real problem returns, staring its ugly face right between your eyes.

Here’s the real issue, and a serious one:

“I couldn’t get into the round. I just couldn’t get into the moment,” Thomas told reporters Friday, “which is sad and a bummer on the first round of the Masters.

“You just wake up some days, and you don’t want to do anything – and I unfortunately I had to go play the first round of the Masters.

“It’s weird, man. I couldn’t get focused. I couldn’t get in the moment. I couldn’t get present. All I could think about was anything other than what I was doing. It sucks when you are playing a place like this because you can’t do that.”

Those words should set off loud warnings and alarms. The inability to be motivated or to focus — for no apparent reason — on one of the four most important weeks of your professional year is a problem that requires a non-golf solution.

It’s not a character flaw that can be overcome with sheer force of will. It’s not a weakness or a defect and can’t be solved by trying harder. If it’s not addressed in the proper way, time will assure that the problem is bound to get worse, not better, and major championships — among other important life events and relationships — might be reduced to insignificance.

Or else Thomas could have more days waking up not wanting to do anything and wishing he were anyone other than himself. 

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