Justin Thomas has been on fire during his opening round of the Tour Championship at East Lake on Thursday, despite a disastrous 16th hole.
Thomas has experienced a real rollercoaster of a season on the PGA Tour in 2025, but he will be hoping to finish in style with a win at the Tour Championship.
He ended up shooting a round of six-under par at East Lake, despite a really disappointing double bogey on the 16th.
That would have hurt him, with a big result needed in Atlanta this week.
Thomas discussed making the Ryder Cup team before the Tour Championship started earlier this week.
He suggested that he feels more comfortable about his chances than he did two years ago ahead of the showdown with Europe in Rome.
Captain Keegan Bradley has talked up Thomas ahead of the Ryder Cup, and a good result at the Tour Championship this week would ensure his place on the team at Bethpage Black.
Justin Thomas delivers verdict on the new Tour Championship format
Thomas has won the FedEx Cup before at East Lake, way back in 2017.
He didn’t actually win the golf tournament that week, and finished second behind Xander Schauffele.
However, whichever player wins the golf tournament this week will be crowned the FedEx Cup champion.
When speaking midway through his first round at East Lake on Thursday, Thomas revealed what ‘everybody’ is saying behind the scenes about the new Tour Championship format.
He said:“I think everybody likes it more than the starting strokes. Even Scottie, who has all right in the world to start this week ahead of everyone, he was a big advocate of getting rid of that.
“It didn’t necessarily produce the best golf tournament. We want to try and have a suspenseful and really competitive tournament, and it felt like changing the format for the time being was the best thing we could do.“
Justin Thomas’s results on the PGA Tour in 2025
Inconsistency has completely undermined Thomas’s 2025 season on the whole.
However, he did secure a victory – his first since May 2022, and he made the Tour Championship, something that is no mean feat in this day and age.
Here are his results from the 2025 season so far:
| Results | Thomas’s totals |
| Events played | 19 |
| Wins | 1 |
| Top-5s | 4 |
| Top-10s | 7 |
| Top-25s | 8 |
| Missed cuts | 2 |
Most players on the PGA Tour would be delighted with a set of results like that.
However, Thomas is a big game player, and he will be desperate for a win at the Tour Championship in order to end his PGA Tour season in style.
Whether he is able to get the better of the man of the moment – Scottie Scheffler – remains to be seen, though.
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