What Happened to Justin Thomas?

this has been a struggling year for Justin Thomas Justin Thomas a big part of the conversation through two rounds and then disaster struck it's been tough you know I go I'm kind of all over the place for years Justin Thomas was one of the best guys in golf constantly proving to be one of the best ball Strikers in the entire world y however 800 days have gone by since his last PGA Tour win and he just isn't the same anymore possibly hinting at a new phenomenon about the longev it in the modern game as a whole so what happened to Justin Thomas for most of golfing history there have been a few guys of each generation who experienced a good amount of consistency at the top level and I think when we look at Justin Thomas's history well we could have expected the exact same from him basically from the day he was born JT was set up to excel in the golf world his grandfather competed in two PGA championships and a US open alongside the likes of Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer then his father Mike Thomas grew up with similar Ambitions to Justin eventually becoming a golf pro as well but when Justin Thomas was growing up in the '90s in Kentucky well he showed more promise than any Thomas boy ever has going to try to practice for all my life and see what it ends up to I mean hopefully I'll be good enough to go to the tour they had all been enthralled by this game by getting this silly little ball into a whole very far away but Justin was special he won plenty of Youth tournaments constantly impressing and even showing off in front of Michael Jordan when he was like 13 while in the meantime striking up a friendship with Jordan spe during those youth tournaments and setting himself up as well as anybody possibly could have for a successful golf career he even became the third youngest golfer in history to make the cut on the PGA tour at 16 years old at the 2009 Windom Championship After High School Justin committed to play golf at the University of Alabama where he would absolutely Excel he won the H Haskins award as the most outstanding Collegiate golfer in his freshman year and was part of the 2013 team that brought Alabama their first national championship in golf history then following that Monumental season Justin turned Pro earning his web.com card through qualifying school and then fought his way to his official PGA Tour card with a fifth place finish on the money list for That season it hadn't been the flashy start to a professional career by any means as especially compared to Jordan spe who had made a massive name for himself winning the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year award in the process but Justin was there slowly making his way to the top but nowadays there are a lot of guys on tour making a name for themselves getting fans to turn on their TVs to watch and getting many to go to the events as well and that has led me to looking for the best deal on tour tickets for the remainder of the Season which is where today's video sponsor seek comes in 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even considered him his sidekick being friends since junior golf it's easy to make those comparisons especially with Jordan lighting up the golf world in his first few years on tour but as their careers went on well you'll see that it's not exactly the same story at all anymore in his debut season the same year Jordan SM nearly won the Grand Slam Justin Thomas grabbed seven top 10 finishes in 27 total starts and put in a healthy Year all around nothing insane but he did give us glimpses of good golf something that would become a larger trend for the remainder of his career Justin would grab his his first win on tour at the beginning of the 15 16 season and then again put in varied performances over the remainder of that year seven more top 10s were jumbled in with six missed Cuts while taking home $4 million in prize money JT had solidified his spot on the tour and was continuing his rise but was by no means blowing anyone out of the water that whole year like we saw from tiger or Scotty Sheffer at times this season however JT's first real break came in the 167 season from October to the end of January Thomas's play finally came together with three wins and two more top 10s in six events that's a streak that we don't see very often today and though they weren't Majors well he would get that job done eventually That season however it wasn't going to be easy for him tied for 22nd at the master tied for Ninth at the US Open and cut from the Open Championship despite a flurry of incredible performances and some impressively low rounds Justin didn't grab a single win after January and had fallen short of his buddy Jordan be yet again as he grabbed the Open Championship in July and was likely set to grab the headlines That season as well going into that Year's PGA Championship well spe sat at number two in the World Behind Dustin Johnson while JT was just 14th and I remind you they're the exact same age however the that wouldn't last very long that year at Quail Hollow for the PGA Championship Justin Thomas would grab the Reigns of the tournament while all were at least most of the big names falter Phil Mickelson was cut at the PGA for the first time in like 25 years and so was Sergio Garcia Justin Rose Bubba Watson among many others while Jordan spe played so poorly he apparently said after the tournament that he may never be suited to win a PGA Championship whatever that means well it I guess it was true but Dustin Johnson struggled as well so did Rory maroy as he claimed an injury to explain his disappointing performance but 23-year-old Justin Thomas played Immaculate golf which included a five under round on Friday and a confident three under on Sunday to drive past Patrick Reed Ricky Fowler and a whole host of other guys that were good back in the day giving JT his first major and finally some bragging rights over his buddy Jordan by the end of that year any sidekick talk was put to an end with JT sitting closely behind spe now in the world rankings tight on the tail of Dustin Johnson and ready to take that title away from him as he was aging with Justin the money leader on tour That season as well he was primed to be the best in the world and his game at times really deserved it he won another tournament 3 weeks after Quil Hollow and then grabbed second place at the door Championship to help him win the PGA Player of the Year award over all his other boys however despite all of that success I need to highlight that he really wasn't ever perfect or consistently perfect now no golfer is perfect but with six missed cuts that year JT was hit or miss at times and that's important to remember because he would become the world number one several times on and off over the next few years but he never lost that hit or miss effect about his game now 2018 was for all intents and purposes a very solid year for a top golfer from JT three wins and double digit top 10s for the second year in a row looks great but he was less impressive in the majors with the exception of a T6 finish at the PGA with the help of a 65 on Friday JT was incredible at times dropping some very solid rounds but he would often see those rounds overshadowed by worst rounds soon after just like he did at Cari at the Open Championship that year as he followed up a three under performance with a six over round on Friday to miss the cut entirely and the next season was a similar story moments of Brilliance of incredible golf like going 17 under through three rounds at the Genesis open in February before coming in Sunday that week four over on his round losing to JB Holmes by a single stroke he would then miss the cut a few more times that year but showed up again at the end of the season winning the BMW Championship and sliding into third at the Tour Championship to finish off a decent season for most guys by the end of 2019 Justin Thomas was a household name one of the bigger personalities or I guess you could say most well-known guys on the tour and as titlists poster boy well he was all over the place as well however he was no world beater he didn't take over the tour like we saw Rory in 2014 or Jordan in 2015 or Brooks in 2018 Justin on his day could be anyone but it was finding that day at the right time that was most difficult for him some put it up to the way he swings the club or his mentality but it's so hard to speculate on why and we'll never really know why this is a big part of his game and in 2020 that weird consistency showed itself yet again he won the century in January got cut from the Sony a week later then got third at the waste management in February then was cut from Genesis a week after that it still shows that trends of inconsistency I'm not going to go into detail for every year for him like I do for most of the golfers I talk about because honestly it's the same story over and over again one or two wins here and some crazy good rounds there but the most notable thing in the past couple years from him was at the 2022 PGA Championship despite four rounds of very decent golf from Wills Alat Tores JT stepped up on Sunday to put in a hell of a shift driving from seven strokes back of the lead to even by 18 well thanks to a bogey on 18 by Mito Pereira but he then took Willie Z down with an elite 200 under through three performance in a playoff and won his second major and his first win of the entire season and last win until today but why is that why hasn't he won since then why have we seen his name less and what's going on with his game well if we compare his numbers this season to 2019 we see that most of his game has gotten just a little bit worse with his game around the green actually improving but his iron play is nowhere near where it used to be however it's not drastically different and I know this video is titled what happened to him but honestly there isn't really a perfect answer to that question apparently he has a nagging hip injury and has been dealing with that for about a year and you guys love to comment that he got married and his priorities Chang but I don't know about that however even today we see glimpses of the game that brought him those trophies years ago like from that first round at Royal trun during the open this year or his eighth place finish at the PGA Championship honestly I think it's also a bit of the fact that there are a lot of incredible golfers around right now guys that might have a few decades ago ruled the entire golf world with the game growing so much of course there will be more Talent making it more difficult for guys to win consistently over the years but the most remarkable thing about all of this to me is that Justin Thomas has the most PGA Tour wins of any active player besides tiger Phil Rory and Dustin Johnson that's more than Jordan spe Brooks Kea Bryson and even Scotty for now despite Justin Thomas being so inconsistent even at his best he was able to scrape away a boatload of wins and I don't know if we're going to see guys that are able to do that moving into the future but what do you think do you think he can pull his game back and get that Wayne pull it all together when it matters I don't know now jump on over to this video to learn more about Jordan spe like I've been talking about this entire video or to this one to get to know what's going on in today's golf world but thank you guys for watching I appreciate it I'll see you in the next one peace