This year hasn't gone the way Justin Thomas envisioned.
However, after being selected as a Captain's pick for the U.S. Ryder Cup Team – a move some saw as controversial – Thomas' year can still end the way he pictured.
"The feelings that go through your body and your head when you're out trying to compete and win points in a Ryder Cup, it's something you don't – at least me personally, I don't and haven't felt anywhere else," Thomas said Tuesday at Marco Simone, site of this week’s first Ryder Cup in Italy.
A year after Thomas won the PGA Championship for his second major victory, there were serious doubts if Thomas, 30, would make his third straight Ryder Cup. He recorded only three top-10s on Tour this year and failed to make the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time in his career, finishing as the first man out at 71st in points. He nearly holed out on the 72nd hole of the Wyndham Championship to extend his season, alas he couldn’t quite ease his tensions about securing a trip to Rome.
"I was putting so much emphasis and so much pressure on trying to play well to make the Ryder Cup, as opposed to trying to make the playoffs," Thomas said.
After the Tour's regular-season finale, Thomas, the world No. 24, accepted whatever his Ryder Cup fate may be. But following the Tour Championship, U.S. Captain Zach Johnson made his six Captain's picks, with Thomas being one of them.
"His passion for the Ryder Cup is very evident," Johnson said when announcing his picks, "In my mind, he was born for this and you just don’t leave JT at home."
Thomas has arguably been the face of the U.S. Ryder Cup Team since 2018. During his debut in Paris five years ago, the Kentucky native went 4-1 as the lone bright spot in the Americans' 17 1/2-10 1/2 loss. Then in 2021, he recorded 2.5 points in the U.S. Team's historic 19-9 trouncing at Whistling Straits.
"I think he's kind of turned into a backbone for the U.S. Ryder Cup Team," said Thomas' usual Ryder Cup playing partner and friend, Jordan Spieth,
But what makes Thomas so successful in the Ryder Cup?
"He just gets the ball in the hole faster than other guys do," Spieth said, "and that's how you win matches here and that's how you play good golf. The elevated pressure and honestly the away games and kind of the opportunity to go like that, like he does, and to raise the crowd up, the home crowd, but also to quiet one and upset them here, he loves doing that, and it creates maybe just a little extra level of focus for him.
“I've been beside him for these Ryder Cups, and he quite simply plays better golf than the guys across from him."
Once his match starts, Thomas has one goal: winning. And it doesn't matter who he's going up against.
"I love Rory [McIlroy]," Thomas said. "We get along extremely well. He's been a role model of mine. He was super nice to me when I was first starting up. He still is. We see each other a bunch. Yeah, we played each other in the Ryder Cup and we hated each other for 18 holes. Again, it's nothing personal. It's not a dislike as a person. It's just my wife knows, if Jill teed it up in the Ryder Cup for the other team, I'm going to try to beat her pretty bad."
McIlroy, arguably the face of the European squad, never wants to face Thomas, which is why the Northern Irishman doesn't see Thomas making the team this year as the wrong call.
"As a European, to me, it was a no-brainer,” McIlroy told Golf.com earlier this month. "Even though he’s not had the best year and he struggled to perform, JT is still one of the first guys you put down on that team sheet for the U.S."
After missing the playoffs, Thomas had some downtime. But he returned to competition at the Fortinet Championship with the Ryder Cup weight off his shoulders and placed fifth. Now, he feels he's turning a corner at the perfect time.
"I clearly am in a lot better place than I was in certain times in the summer," Thomas said. "But I mean, it's golf. ... You just never know. I had plenty of signs of great golf this summer as well. It was just I had quite a few less of them and I had more signs of the other. But more than anything, I'm just in a good head space, and that's – for me, that's what's most important."
With his subpar season in the rearview mirror, Thomas is excited to try and close his year how he imagined: Helping the U.S. to its first win on foreign soil in three decades.
And it doesn't matter whether or not he should have been picked for the team, because now, he and his 11 teammates share one clear mission.
"I'm very glad that they [picked me] and do have faith in me," Thomas said. "And now that I'm here, all of us hold the same weight as the other one. We are all one, and it's just our job to go out there and try to win points."
