J.T. on being No. 8 in OWGR: “pisses me off”

Justin Thomas enters the Valspar Championship as the eighth-ranked player in the world, which apparently doesn’t sit too well with the former world No. 1.

“To be perfectly honest, it pisses me off where I am in the world ranking,” Thomas said Wednesday. “But it just goes to show the level of golf that’s being played.”

After winning the 2021 Players Championship, Thomas was second in the world ranking, but he failed to record a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour between that victory and a T-4 at The Northern Trust a little more than five months later. 

Thomas has regained form, with top-10 finishes in seven of his last 11 starts worldwide. Still, he fell from fifth to eighth in the world ranking during that time, and he knows why. 

“I clearly have not won very many golf tournaments in the last two years, year and a half, at least, from other parts of my career,” Thomas said. “But I’ve played some pretty damn good golf and it’s just, if you’re not winning tournaments you’re getting lapped right now and that’s just the way that it is.”

There is no substitute for winning, and each of the seven players ranked ahead of Thomas have won more recently than the 14-time Tour winner. 

Thomas wants to get back to No. 1 in the world ranking, and thinks his game is trending in the right direction. 

“I feel great about my game,” Thomas said. “I feel like it’s very, very close to where I would like it. I feel like I’m close to getting on a good run here.”