Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler are competing in Japan.
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Justin Thomas thinks he can win every tournament he plays. And why wouldn’t he, having won 15 tournaments in his eight years at the top of the golf world.
But over those years, a part of Thomas has changed. He’s matured, as we all have, which has come with a realization that all tour pros come to: Winning tournaments isn’t just hard—it’s really difficult. Drought will teach you that.
Thomas famously won 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in a playoff against Will Zalatoris — a victory that looks more stunning as time goes on. Not only did he do it by hitting a bogey in the final round, but he followed it up by playing in one of the biggest slumps of his golfing life.
Most everyone followed along with that drop, too. You couldn’t help it when the 80s started to pile up. It was 81 at the US Open – which he called it “humiliating” — and then 80 a month later at the Open Championship. Thomas ran to Minneapolis to play a tournament he doesn’t normally attend, and then to Greensboro for another tournament he doesn’t normally attend. All to prove he could stick around to help Team USA in the Ryder Cup.
Is he? Sorta. The Americans were soundly beaten, but Thomas’ inclusion on that team continued to look questionable in 2024 when Netflix Full motion made his relationship with captain Zach Johnson seem like the main reason Thomas was selected with the captain’s pick. According to DataGolf, Thomas had finished outside the top 50 in the world in September 2023, the first time in his career you could say that.
He struggled with his placement, really struggled with finding fairways and wasn’t making up for it with his irons and short game. But fast forward 12 months, and things have really changed. He was challenged several times in the spring, nearly winning The AmEx. He parted ways with caddy Jim Mackay and teamed up with Matt Minister. He missed the cut in several runs, but moved himself back into the top 20 in the world. it lost The president of the Cup, but then announced that he and his wife were expecting a baby girl. The only thing that hasn’t changed is his winning career. That makes this week’s tour, his final tour of the calendar year, all the more interesting.
Because Thomas is just two shots back, tied for second place.
“I’m eager to win every tournament, I always want to,” Thomas said Friday at the Zozo Championship. “When things go well, you think you have to do it quite often and every year, but it’s just the reality of how hard the sport is.”
He had just shot a 64 to reach 10 under at Narashino Country Club just outside Tokyo. It was four birdies, no bogeys and a final eagle that he said, “honestly didn’t feel like much.” It has him on the cusp of his 16th career tour win, and first in more than two years. We count winning droughts in this sport for very few players. Thomas is one of them.
During the post-round presser, Thomas continued to show his age again when he said the talent level on Tour looks deeper than when he started in 2017.
“You have a lot of guys who are extremely talented and fearless and hungry to win like all of us.”
If that’s not an idea, all professionals 30 and over seem to share it again. He will feel a lot of those extremely talented guys on the leaderboard this weekend, namely Nico Echavarria, who holds the 36-hole lead. But Thomas won’t be alone in the 30-and-over crowd trying to prevent a drought in Japan. He won’t be the only player in the Jupiter-Florida-of-Tiger-Woods crowd of 30-and-older friends trying to snap a bad streak, either.
Thomas’ friend Rickie Fowler is also there. A 64 Friday, eight under on the week, four back.
Fowler did one better than Thomas in the win column in 2023, but hasn’t done better than him since. On August 7, 2023, DataGolf ranked Fowler the 8th best in the world. This week he registers at 118.
The 2020s have been a rollercoaster for Fowler, who slipped in form starting in 2020 and took more than two years to bottom out. But then, 2023 saw him rise again, becoming a bastion of consistency and constantly bringing his all-around skills into contention. A win this weekend would end a more serious drought than Thomas’s – it would simply mean three consecutive tournaments of excellent form, the first time that would have happened since his victory last summer.
The third round of the Zozo Championship begins Friday night in America, with Fowler and Thomas tee off at 9:35 PM ET and 9:57 PM ETrespectively.
