The 2017 golf season belonged to Justin Thomas, as the then 25-year-old won five PGA Tour events during the year. Prior to teeing off the year, Thomas had won just twice on the tour claiming victories at the CIMB Classic in 2015 and 2016. To say Thomas was the golfer of the year would be an understatement. His wins during the 2017 season weren’t just throwaway PGA tournaments. One of his wins came at the PGA Championship. It marked Thomas’ first-ever major victory as he won by two strokes. Thomas went on to win the PGA Dell Technologies Championship to cap off the year.
As 2017 ended, Thomas won a host of awards. The PGA Player of the Year, PGA Tour Player of the Year, FedEx Cup, and PGA Leading Money Winner awards all went to Thomas. Due to his haul of accolades, it was hard to believe he had only turned professional in 2013.
Thomas’ initial years in golf weren’t as successful and lucrative as they became. He started professional life on the Web.com Tour after earning his tour card in its qualifying school. In 2014, Thomas won his first golf event as a pro. He claimed first place at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. Although Thomas didn’t win the Web.com Tour’s Rookie of the Year award, his play did earn him a spot at the ‘big boys’ table’ on the PGA Tour. By the end of November 2015, Thomas had earned his first win as a PGA Tour member. Since winning his first professional event in 2015, Thomas earned at least one victory as a professional golfer in eight straight seasons up to 2022.
While Thomas has now won the PGA Championship on two occasions, golf’s other majors have eluded him. His next best finish was fourth place at the 2020 Masters. The American still has a lot of time left in his golf career to reach even higher and claim further major titles.
Justin Thomas’ Major Wins
| Years | Masters | US PGA | U.S. Open | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | ✕ | ✅ | ✕ | ✕ |
| 2022 | ✕ | ✅ | ✕ | ✕ |
Masters Wins: None
Between 2014 and 2024, Justin Thomas played at Augusta National in the Masters Tournament nine times. Of those, he missed the cut twice, with both of those misses coming in the more recent iterations of the tournament in 2023 and 2024. The first time that he headed to the course came in 2016, when he made the cut and finished tied-39th. He improved slightly a year later when he ended up tied-22nd, and continued his upwards trajectory when he ended up tied-17th in 2018. The trend continued in 2019 when he finished tied-12th, but his best performance to date came in 2020 when he was tied for fourth. A tied-21st in 2021 and tied-eighth in 2022 rounded things off.
PGA Championship Wins: 2
It is fair to say that the PGA Championship is easily Justin Thomas’s favourite Major, given the fact that it is the only one that he has won at the time of writing. Not only has he managed to win it, he’s done so twice, as if to prove that the first one wasn’t a fluke. The first time that he took part in the competition was 2015 when he ended up tied-18th, following that up with a tied-66th finish a year later. That was something of an anomaly, though, given that he won the tournament a year later and fined tied-sixth in 2018. Having not played in 2019, Thomas was tied-37th in 2020 and missed the cut in 2021 before winning it again in 2022, then tying 65th and tying-eighth in 2024.
2017 – Two Shot Win Over Molinari, Oosthuizen & Reed
Having finished tied for 66th in 2016, not many thought Justin Thomas would be able to get a Major win when he teed off in the PGA Championship of 2017 at the Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina. An opening round 73 won’t have caused many people to re-think their opinion on the matter, but a 66 on day two shot him up to be tied-seventh. His third round saw him card a 69, meaning that he was -5 heading into the final day and just two off Kevin Kisner in the lead. The tenth on the final day was a sliding doors moment, with his birdie putt pausing on the lip of the hole before dropping in. He ended the day with a 68, winning by two shots from three players.
2022 – Joint Largest Comeback Forces Playoff
Thomas’s PGA Championship performances in the five years between him winning it for the first time and claiming his second victory weren’t exactly ones to write home about. The 2022 iteration of the competition took place at Southern Hills Country Club, with Thomas shooting a three under par 67 on the opening day to sit two shots off Rory McIlroy in the lead. Day two brought another 67, meaning he was three off the top spot, which was occupied by Will Zalatoris. Mito Pereira was there at the end of day three, when Thomas’s 74 pushed him seven off the top, but he overcame it to force a play-off on day four. It went to a play-off, which Thomas won over Zalatoris.
US Open Wins: None
One of the most coveted trophies in golf, especially for American players, the US Open is a tournament that Thomas has never really troubled the top end of. He missed the cut in his first try of the competition in 2014, then didn’t take part at all a year later. In 2016 he ended up tied for 32nd, then in 2017 improved when he finished tied for ninth. In 2018 he was tied-25th, then in 2019 he missed the cut. He was tied-eighth in 2020, his best performance to date, then was tied-19th and tied-37th in the two years that followed. Were his PGA Championship wins the exception to his career? Two missed cuts in the US Open 2023 and 2024 suggest they might be.
Open Championship Wins: None
The Open Championship isn’t for everyone, with links golf being a real test of a player’s mettle. That is especially true of American golfers, given the manner in which the courses are set up nothing like those in the United States. When it comes to Justin Thomas, three missed cuts in 2017, 2018 and 2023 suggest he might not be a fan. His first attempt at the competition came in 2016 when he ended up tied for 53rd, then in 2019 he was tied for 11th. There was no Open to be played in 2020, with 2021 seeing him come in tied for 40th. A year on and things weren’t much better, finishing it tied-53rd, whilst 2024 saw him tie for 31st.