Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler are in contention in Japan.
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Justin Thomas thinks he can win every tournament he plays in. And why shouldn’t he, having won 15 tour events in his eight years at the top of the golf world.
But during those years, part of Thomas has changed. He’s grown, as we all do, with a realization that all Tour pros come to: Winning tournaments isn’t just hard — but indeed hard. Drought will teach you that.
Thomas won the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills in a playoff against Will Zalatoris – a victory that looks even more impressive in retrospect. Not only did he do it when he hit the shank in the final round, but he followed it up by playing one of the biggest spots of his golfing career.
Everyone followed along with that descent, too. You couldn’t help it when the 80s started piling up. There was an 81 at the US Open – which he called “disgraceful” – and then an 80 a month later at the Open Championship. Thomas ran to Minneapolis to play in a tournament he doesn’t normally enter, then he went to Greensboro for another tournament he doesn’t normally enter. All to prove that he can help Team USA in the Ryder Cup.
Did he do it? Filter. The Americans were completely beaten, but Thomas’ inclusion in that group continued to be controversial until 2024 when Netflix Full Change he credited his relationship with captain Zach Johnson as the main reason Thomas was named captain. According to DataGolf, Thomas was out of the top 50 in the world in September 2023, the first time in his career that can be said.
He faced his putting, indeed He struggled to find the fairways, and he wasn’t successful with his irons and short game. But fast-forward 12 months, and things have really changed. He entered several times in the spring, and almost won the AmEx. She broke up with caddy Jim Mackay and met Matt Minister. He missed the cut at several majors but climbed back into the top 20 in the world. He you missed it President Cup but then announced that he and his wife are expecting a baby girl. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that his winning career has been successful. Which makes this week’s tournament, his last tournament of the calendar year, all the more interesting.
Because Thomas is only two points away, he is tied for second place.
“I’m eager to win any tournament, I always want to,” said Thomas on Friday at the Zozo Championship. “When things are going well, you feel like you have to do that every year, but the reality is how hard the game is.”
He had just shot a 64 to get to 10 under at Narashino Country Club outside Tokyo. It was four birdies, bogeys and an eagle that finished, “you didn’t feel like you had much.” It has him on the verge of that 16th career Tour win, and his first in more than two years. We are counting the winning drought in this game with very few players. Thomas is one of them.
During his press time after the tour, Thomas continued to show his age again when he said that the level of talent on the Tour seems to be deeper than when he started, back in 2017.
“You’ve got a lot of guys who are incredibly talented and fearless and hungry to win like we all are.”
If that’s not an opinion all 30-plus-year-old professionals seem to share again. You’ll hear a lot of those guys with unusual skills on the leaderboard this weekend, namely Nico Echavarria, who has a 36-hole lead. But Thomas won’t be alone in the 30-plus crowd trying to end Japan’s drought. He won’t be the only player in the crowd of Tiger-Woods’ 30-and-older friends trying to find a bad record.
Thomas’ friend, Rickie Fowler, is there, too. Friday 64, eight under the week, four back.
Fowler did better than Thomas in the win column in 2023, but he hasn’t done better than him since. On August 7, 2023, DataGolf ranked Fowler the 8th best golfer in the world. This week you will come in at 118.
The 2020s have been a rollercoaster for Fowler, who has been out of shape since 2020 and took more than two years to get off the ground. But then 2023 saw him rise again, becoming a cornerstone of consistency and taking his all-around talent—he stayed in contention. A win this weekend would end a drought worse than Thomas’s – it would mean three tournaments in a row of good form, the first since he won last summer.
The third round of the Zozo Championship begins Friday night in America, with Fowler and Thomas playing at 9:35 pm ET and 9:57 pm ET, respectively.
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