When Justin Thomas lifted the 2022 PGA Championship for a second major title, few would have ever imagined that he would go through the 2023 and 2024 seasons on the PGA Tour without securing a single win.
It has been a frustrating time for Justin Thomas. His inclusion in the 2023 Ryder Cup was extremely controversial after an underwhelming year. And while there were better signs at times in 2024, he did not do enough to tempt Jim Furyk to pick him for the Presidents Cup.
He did finish second at the ZOZO Championship in the fall season. However, Thomas’ putting seemed to cost him, with the 31-year-old enduring an incredibly frustrating final day on the greens at Narashino.
Unfortunately, that was very much the story of Thomas’ season. He lost .478 strokes per round on the greens during the season. And it seems that he is going to need to improve considerably if he is going to get back to the top of the game.
Justin Thomas urged to emulate Scottie Scheffler at the Hero World Challenge
The good news is Thomas has finished in the top five at the Hero World Challenge on a number of occasions in recent years, including coming third in 2023. And with that, Paige Mackenzie has told Golf Channel that this week’s event could represent a real turning point – just as it did for Scottie Scheffler 12 months ago.
“One thing though that stood out to me as it relates to this season and why this was a little bit of a negative outlier for Justin Thomas is what was going on on the greens. He’s never been one of the best putters on the PGA Tour, but going back to 2020, you can see 2020, ’21 and ’22, he’s right there in the middle of the pack. He’s not really gaining or losing much on the field,” she said.
“Last year, he was ranked outside the top 130 in strokes gained putting. And you can see this season continues the downward trend. He was losing nearly half a shot on the field, and again, that ranked him at 174th on the PGA Tour. There’s only 10 players outside of that number on the season.
“So for Justin Thomas, there was a lot of positives, and he can look at the ball-striking and realise he came so close to winning at ZOZO, but also throughout the season to finish where he did, in spite of the fact that he had an anchor as a putter for most of the season.
“But I’m going to use this week as a good example. We heard Scottie Scheffler talking about how he did some good putting work here last year with his putting coach and that seemed to filter into the beginning of the season. Perhaps, for Justin Thomas, he can use this week and reset because he has had a lot of success in this event. He’s coming into this event with a lot of good feelings of the weeks that he’s played here in the past. So perhaps he can start to turn things around on the greens and match what he feels like with the golf swing and with the iron play.”
The strengths and weaknesses of Thomas’ game in 2024
What is scary is that everything else is in place for Thomas to return to the top. He was 25th on tour for total strokes gained in 2024, which is remarkable given where he ranked for his putting.
Thomas was ninth for his approach game, while he was fifth for tee to green. And his best result was third around the green.
| Strokes gained | PGA Tour rank (2024) |
| Off the tee | 72nd |
| Tee to green | 5th |
| Approach | 9th |
| Around the green | 3rd |
| Putting | 174th |
| Total | 25th |
Scheffler showed that a player does not need to be anything like the world’s best putter to dominate the game. But the world number one still managed to win eight times across the year.
If Thomas can even get back to a place where he is in the middle of the pack for his putting again, and maintains the quality of the rest of his game, he has every chance of ending his current wait for a win.
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