At the Valspar, Justin Thomas Is Trying to Turn the Corner in a 'Bizarre' Season

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Justin Thomas is the highest-ranked player in the Valspar Championship field at No. 10 in the world.

He hasn’t missed a 36-hole cut since last summer.

And he’s the reigning PGA Championship winner, undoubtedly on the list of favorites for next month’s Masters.

Still, frustration reigns.

"That's one of the words I would use to describe how I’m feeling. It’s a lot," Thomas said Wednesday after his pro-am round at Innisbrook’s Copperhead course. “It’s just been an odd year. I’ve been working really hard and trying to get what I feel like is back to more how I’m playing.

“Then I have weeks where I feel like I’m really close and I feel really far at times. It’s kind of bizarre."

Thomas is coming off a disappointing week where he tied for 60th at the Players Championship, having barely made the cut. That is a tournament he won two years ago.

He was unable to finish inside the top 20 at either the Arnold Palmer Invitational or Genesis Invitational but was fourth at the WM Phoenix Open.

That is his only top-10 finish in six starts in 2023.

“I’ll have some signs of feeling like I’m there," he said. “I need to get the consistency, back in some things but not feel like I need to start over and kind of rewrite the book. It’s not that far off. It’s just the game of golf can do that sometimes.

“I think Max (Homa) said however many years ago, 'this game can make you feel one swing away from wanting to go quit and one swing away from feeling like you’re going to win the Masters.' So that’s where I kind of am right now."

At 29, Thomas long ago established himself as one of the game’s best. He has been ranked No. 1 in the world and has 15 PGA Tour victories, including two major championships. Five of those wins came in 2017.

But the pace has slowed a bit of late. He won the PGA last year but saw his ranking slip from No. 5 in the world. His only victory in 2021 was at the Players.

Thomas, understandably, believes he should be winning more.

“My golf game obviously doesn't feel great," he said. “I haven't been playing really, really well, but I feel like I'm close. I'm just trying to stay patient and stay positive and just kind of wait for good things to happen because I know that great things are coming. It's just a matter of time and I just need to be in the right frame of mind for it."

One of the reasons Thomas chose to play the Valspar Championship is his success on the course, including missing a playoff by a stroke last year.

And if you want to drill down on his shortcomings, it’s easy to point to putting, where Thomas ranks 144th on the PGA Tour in strokes-gained putting, giving up more than a quarter of a stroke to the field.

His best statistic is third for strokes-gained around the green, and there is improvement to be made in other areas, such as strokes-gained approach, where he ranks just 61st. All of it adds up to that "frustration" word.

“Everybody that plays out here will tell you, you have times where the ball's lipping out sometimes, and then you have where it's going your way and the ball's going in," Thomas said. “It's just kind of been a little bit of a run where it feels like I've hit a lot of good putts and hit shots that are close to working out one way or the other and just haven't.

“But that's golf and that's the sport. I feel really comfortable, really good over my putter. I just need to get my speed dialed in and just really see some go in because I've had—especially on the west coast, I had some really good putting tournaments. I just didn't necessarily have it for four days. I would have maybe two days or three days or two days with good, one of O.K., and one bad, and it is just about minimizing those bad and really trying to get it going when it's good."