Justin Thomas Is Playing This Week, But Ryder Cup Captain Zach Johnson Isn't Putting Much Stock in the Result
While all 12 members of the European Ryder Cup team are competing in England this week, two players from the American side are teeing it up at the first event of the PGA Tour’s fall schedule in Napa, California.
And so is U.S. captain Zach Johnson along with one of his five assistants, Stewart Cink.
Two-time defending champion Max Homa as well as Justin Thomas, a controversial at-large pick of Johnson’s, are in the Fortinet Championship field that begins play on Thursday at Silverado Country Club.
Justin Thomas is playing on Tour for the first time in over a month, having missed the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Logan Whitton/Getty Images
While the event will be a way to gauge how well each player is doing with just two weeks to go before the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome, Johnson said he won’t be putting too much thought into the final results—either way.
"Ideally, they get some momentum," Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday. "Momentum in this game can be pretty lethal. Max navigated the Presidents Cup quite well (he went 4-0 a week after winning the Fortinet last year). Something to be said about having control of the golf ball that shows in the results. But I’m not giving it a whole lot of merit in that regard. It’s four days of stroke play versus three days of team match play.
"I'm not going to put too much merit in their scorecards (at the Fortinet) in two weeks. Hopefully they show signs of great form. But I'm not overly concerned about that. The majority of the team played so much golf in July and August and your body needs a break. We have a month off from the Tour Championship to the Ryder Cup."
Of course, Thomas has not been playing since early August at the Wyndham Championship, where his T12 finish was not good enough to secure a spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs. He was 71st with the top 70 qualifying, meaning the two-time major champion missed the three playoff events.
He garnered a pick from Johnson anyway, mostly on the strength of his past Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup play. Thomas went 4-1 in his first Ryder Cup in Paris five years ago.
Homa qualified for the team automatically, finishing fifth of the six players who made the team through a points formula along with Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.
Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Rickie Fowler and Sam Burns were the other picks.
"Whatever Max and JT do this week will be overstated to the good or the bad," Cink said. “I hope they both win—I don’t think that’s possible, but for their confidence alone. For us internally, we hope they have confidence coming out of this week. That would be a great thing. But you can’t look at results from one week. Not going to take somebody out of the pairings or putting somebody in the pairings based on one tournament 7,000 miles away."
Johnson said the weekend trip to Marco Simone with nine of the 12 players—only Spieth, Cantlay and Schauffele didn't go—was productive as simply a way to learn the course.
"Part of the joy and the purpose of our practice round trip is to let those guys see the course so that way, when we get there that week, they don't have to force it and push themselves to get their feet on the ground that much because they already know kind of what to expect so they can kind of prepare accordingly," Johnson said. "Friday (the first day of the Ryder Cup) can't come any quicker.
"It seems like you get there and Friday just takes forever to get there, but when it's there, it's a lot of golf in a short amount of time. Personally, I think rest is great. It's great that JT and Max are playing. It makes sense that JT’s playing because he hasn't played much.
The European Ryder Cup team visited Marco Simone on Monday and Tuesday and all 12 members are competing at this week’s BMW PGA Championship outside of London.