ORLANDO — Justin Thomas is good at golf. You may know he has won the Players Championship and two PGA Championships. (Why, that’s 40 percent of the way, per Brandel, to the career Grand Slam!) Rory McIlroy (actual winner of the actual career Grand Slam) and hanging around 10th place at the midway point of this ongoing Arnold Palmer Invitational, noted on Friday that Justin Thomas, his Ryder Cup foil and greater South Florida neighbor, has been “one of the best players in the world for the last 10 years — he’ll be fine.”
But Thomas’s first two rounds back into tournament golf — he hasn’t played since the Ryder Cup in September and had back surgery on Nov. 13 — were anything but fine. He followed his Thursday 79 with a Friday … 79. There are only 72 players at this Signature event. There’s actually a cut, for the top-50 and ties (or within 10 of the lead). JT’s workweek is over. He’s dead last.
There was good news for Justin Thomas and his growing family, plus anybody hoping he makes the Presidents Cup team this year: “My body feels great, which is a huge positive.”
Talking to reporters on Friday afternoon, Thomas, who in good times can certainly come off as cocky, was humble and candid and anything but self-assured:
“Just a pretty miserable couple of days,” he said. Playing under the gun again, he said, would have meant something “if I had played remotely decent. I expect more of myself. I don’t think there’s any situation where I feel like I should shoot 14 over par for two days.” He said he was “very, very anxious, very nervous, just in my own way.” He said his putting was terrible, he was hitting it left all day, he was worried bringing down his playing partner, Hideki Matsuyama. He talked about a shot where the one thing you cannot do is hit it in the water. Splash. Thomas didn’t quote Tiger intentionally but out came this TW chestnut: “It is what it is.”
He was asked if Woods, his buddy and frequent playing partner, had any advice about coming back from injuries, surgeries and layoffs.
“He’s like a lot of people, who are at the best of what they do. They’re not the best at explaining it,” Thomas said. “Obviously, he’s gone through back stuff, a lot.
“But my situation is a little different. I feel [my biggest issue] is getting mentally ready. That’s what I noticed these last two days. I was so spacey. I couldn’t concentrate on the thing I needed to do.”
Thomas said he hoped to find a course to play and hit balls — and do some putting — in greater Orlando on Saturday, before heading to Ponte Vedra Beach for the Players Championship. He said he could not imagine practicing putting at Bay Hill on the weekend, as the greens “are so dead already.”
McIlroy was asked for his insights into Thomas as Thomas comes back from his microdiscectomy surgery for a herniated disk issue.
“I haven’t went through surgery, so I don’t know what that’s like to come back from,” McIlroy said. “It’s going to take time. I saw JT a few weeks ago and he said that this is going to be his first start. And I said, ‘Oof — that’s probably not the best place to come back to after six months off.’”
But then McIlroy went to what sounds true and could be true but you never really know: “He just needs to get sharp again, get into tournament mode, all that stuff. As long as he got through these two days and didn’t feel any ill effects of the back or the surgery, then I think he’s in a good spot.”
Even if that spot is 14 over par, 27 strokes behind the 36-hole leader, Daniel Berger. Yes, Daniel Berger. He missed 19 months in 2023 with a bulging disk and other health issues.
Look at him now.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
