After a Lost Season, Justin Thomas Has No Business on the U.S. Ryder Cup Team
From pouty superstar to struggling realist, Justin Thomas has found sunshine in the glass half empty. A dreadful 2023 revealed him as a tour pro of robust character—Thomas remained accessible and candid throughout the toughest season of his career. For all the talk over the years about how he’s harder on himself than he is anyone else, little was made of JT’s levelheaded perspective during the ordeal.
Class and dignity don’t add up to a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, however, and when skipper Zach Johnson fills out his roster with six at-large selections later this month, logic says Thomas doesn’t make the trip to Rome. He missed the cut at three of the four majors, advancing to the weekend only at the PGA Championship, where his title defense ended with a T65. After a solo fourth at the WM Phoenix Open back in February, his best finish anywhere was a T9 at the Travelers.
That Thomas has fallen to 25th in the Official World Golf Ranking testifies to the OWGR’s dated system more than anything else; the Sports Illustrated World Golf Rankings has him at 45th. His failure to make the FedEx Cup playoffs has been fully documented, but what matters most in the here and now is that JT is 14th in the Ryder Cup standings—and that a whopping 41.3 percent of his points came off that PGA victory 15 months ago.
Johnson can do the math or incite the wrath. By almost every practical measure, the inclusion of Thomas on the U.S. squad is a foolish risk. Thirty years have passed since the Yanks last beat Europe on opposing turf. The four most recent overseas meetings have resulted in losses by an average margin of 5.4 points, a dumbfounding display of inferiority in that just 28 points are at stake over the three days.
Having won the 2007 Masters by laying up on every par-5, a strategy that led to 11 birdies and his first major title, Johnson would do well to embrace a conservative mindset in handling his most important task as captain. Those six picks mean that half his team will be compiled at his own discretion, which makes him the most powerful man ever to command a U.S. side. It also lends credence to the notion that hot golfers should be prioritized over those with more impressive careers or greater Ryder Cup experience. Johnson has the first two playoff events to determine who’s moving in the right direction.
“I want to make the Ryder Cup team so bad,” Thomas confessed last Saturday, about 24 hours before coming up painfully short of a postseason berth. “I mean, it’s so important to me. I legitimately would rather make the Ryder Cup than the playoffs, which is really, really messed up to say, but it’s just the truth.”
And equally painful to the neckties in Camp Ponte Vedra who endlessly pump their $75 million, three-week finale for all it is or isn’t worth. Thomas's skill, patriotic vigor and competitive intensity have a lot to do with his 6-2-1 record vs. Europe. His partnership with Jordan Spieth has been a successful one, producing four points in six team matches, but JT isn’t performing anywhere close to the level that propelled him to 13 wins from October 2016 to August 2020.
Spieth isn’t exactly churning out victories the way he once did, either, which is why he’s ninth in the U.S. standings and hardly a lock to earn one of Johnson’s picks at this point, although it’s difficult to imagine him staying home. The Texan’s magical short game and habit of holing 40-footers compensate for his lack of accuracy from tee to green. Is JT, with his game in disarray, capable of carrying his buddy through those frequent stretches of ball-striking woe?
That’s a tough thing to count on with the matches just seven weeks away and Spieth’s bestie done for the year. Johnson could roll the dice and choose Thomas if only for his compatibility with Spieth. Or he could look long and hard at Bryson DeChambeau, whose sudden re-emergence after 14 months of hibernation in LIV Golf’s 54-hole league was accredited by a final-round 58 and come-from-behind triumph last weekend. The former Brawny Brainiac might be an even crazier captain’s pick than JT, but his ridiculous length and current trendline surely merit consideration for a spot on the U.S. squad. At least until next week.
Johnson could ignore the LIV resource altogether and justify his lack of interest with a straight face. Or he could ponder the value of his namesake, the big dude who married the hockey player’s daughter and rolled to a 5-0 record two years ago at Whistling Straits. “I have no idea if I’d get picked,” Dustin Johnson said in May, alluding to any potential embargo on PGA Tour ship-jumpers as captain’s selections.
Here’s what we do know: the home team has overpowered the visitor at each of the last four Ryder Cups, and the U.S. hasn’t won a road tilt since the early stages of the Clinton administration. With Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman doubling as both virtual certainties and gigantic X-factors, and with Max Homa, Cameron Young and Keegan Bradley heading the list of those just outside the top six, this doesn’t stack up as the most imposing American roster ever assembled. Or the second most. Or the seventh.
Zach Johnson is looking at a very tall mountain in his not-so-distant future, a vertical mass that has nothing to do with the Apennine range that shielded Romans from military invasions long before Uncle Sam started getting blown out in its biennial series with the Euros. With Collin Morikawa, WGC Match Play champion Sam Burns and Rickie Fowler occupying the three spots ahead of Thomas, Johnson has any number of viable options, none of which should involve a guy who finished 71st in the courier sweepstakes despite the absence of the 15 or so Americans who defected to the Saudis.
The struggling realist probably has several Ryder Cups left in him before he rides off into the sunset. Until then, the glass will remain half empty.