Justin Thomas

Thomas is known for his stellar rate of big finishes over the course of his career but that changed recently with six straight finishes landing outside of the top 10. A cold putter has been the culprit for much of the downturn but he managed to fight through the flat-stick woes this week. Thomas lost 1.9 strokes putting at TPC River Highlands but ranked 3rd in strokes gained tee-to-green. It was a promising result to rebuild some confidence but he still has some work to do in the putting department. Despite the nice finish this week, Thomas is just 66th in the FedExCup race. 

JT arrives at just 71st in the FedExCup race. He's racked up seven top 25s but just hasn't found that top gear that is normally in his arsenal. "I just feel like for the majority of the months this year I just, seems like basically every round I'm playing I shoot the highest score that I possibly can. It's just, I mean, you just go on those sprees sometimes in golf. Over a long career you're going to have, if you want to call them slumps, if you want to call them cold streaks or whatever, and you're also going to have your hot streaks." Thomas went on to talk about a diet that he's been on, going gluten-free for the past year and dairy-free in the last six months. It would probably be silly to think his current slump is related to the diet but if he continues to fail to find the desired results then maybe he'll experiment with adding dairy back into his life. Thomas is a past champ at this week's course, winning the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club. His best finish at a Wells Fargo hosted at Quail is a T7 (2015). 

Thomas lost nearly five strokes putting at THE PLAYERS and that club stayed cold at the Valspar. He gained 7.2 strokes tee-to-green but ranked 50th in putting (-0.6 strokes gained putting). He started the week just 66th in the early FedExCup race but is set to jump to 60th with this finish. He's elected to skip next week's WGC-Match Play so we'll see him next at the Masters unless he opts for one last tune-up at the Valero Texas Open in two weeks.

The USGA and R&A introduced a proposal on the rollback of the golf ball at the highest level. Thomas responded, "You're trying to create a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. To me, it's so bad for the game of golf, I mean, some of the great things to me is the fact that you can play the exact same golf ball that I play. I mean, that's cool." Whether he hit the mark with his rant or not is besides the point, but we can file him under golfers that are not looking forward to the rollback scenario. As for the state of his game ahead of the Valspar, "I feel really close and I feel really far at times. So it's kind of bizarre." Thomas has top 25s in five of six starts this year but just one of those doubled as a top 15. He twirled a T3 at this event last year.