Justin Thomas has won two major championships during his career so far and while creating a legacy by racking up individual wins is incredibly important to him, so is winning the Ryder Cup.
Thomas, 32, has 16 PGA Tour wins to his name, including two PGA Championship victories.
However, his record in the Ryder Cup isn’t as impressive, nowhere near in fact.
The man from Kentucky has represented the United States four times in the Ryder Cup and has only been on one winning side, in 2021.
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However, he does have a fairly impressive individual record in the competition of 9-6-2.
It has been claimed that the Ryder Cup means more to the Europeans than the Americans, and there may be some truth to that, with the USA having lost 11 of the last 15 editions of the competition.
Shane Lowry said the Ryder Cup meant more to him than winning a major, after he holed his putt on the final green at Bethpage Black to tie his match with Russell Henley.
Justin Thomas responds when asked if the Ryder Cup means more to him than majors
Thomas was speaking about the changes he wants the PGA Tour to make, during an appearance on Trey Wingo’s Straight Facts Homie Podcast.
However, conversation shifted to the Ryder Cup and Thomas was asked what he made of Lowry’s comments suggesting that holing the putt to retain the Ryder Cup was more special to him than winning The Open.
Thomas has been one of the true leaders in the American team at the Ryder Cup over the past seven years.
However, his answer to the question posed will still surprise many.
He said: “I mean, I caught a lot of flack for it in 2015 or something. I did a sit down with Mark Rolfing in Hawaii.
“I remember he asked me, ‘would you rather win a major or an away Ryder Cup?’, and I was like, ‘I’d rather win a Ryder Cup away’, and everyone was blown away.
“I think you can’t compare and you can’t be like, there’s not like a formula like winning a Ryder Cup is worth like 1.23 tournaments to me. They’re both important, right?
“I think doing that whole comparison thing isn’t fair to anybody, but I think, especially being away, I truly feel that if we were to go to Ireland and get this done in two years, whoever is the one that’s making that putt would have the same emotion and say the same thing that Shane said.
“Because it means so much and winning an away Ryder Cup, how unbelievably difficult that is. Like, I can’t imagine.
“So, hopefully we’re able to come back to this in a couple of years and we can talk about whoever it was from the U.S who made it and said the same thing.
“But no, I buy into what Shane said. I mean, it’d be the coolest thing ever because it’s so much bigger than just you.“
What Trey Wingo said about what the Ryder Cup means to American players
Last month, Wingo was dissecting potential reasons why the Europeans have been so dominant in the Ryder Cup for so long now.
One of his explanations centered around Lowry’s comments after Team Europe emerged victorious at Bethpage Black.
Wingo said: “It does mean more to them, I don’t care what anybody says, it does mean more to them.
“You’re not going to hear a US player say I would give up a major championship to secure the winning putt for the Ryder Cup, which is basically an exhibition. It’s the coolest, most hostile and competitive exhibition there is, maybe in all of sport.
“But would any American player say what Shane Lowry said? ‘I have won The Open in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and this means more to me, this means more to me’. I don’t think there is an American player who would say that.“
However, Justin Thomas has seemingly put to bed the notion that European players care more about the Ryder Cup than the Americans do.
We will have to see whether that is actually true, though. If an American major champion holes the winning putt at Adare Manor in 2027, I still have my doubts that he will say it was the most special moment of his career.
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