Keep an Eye on Justin Thomas in His Return to Quail Hollow

Two-time PGA Champion Justin Thomas is rounding into top form just in time for his return to the site of his major championship breakthrough at Quail Hollow, when he was the last man standing in 2017 on that exciting Sunday that August.

The 32-year-old's first win in three years earlier this month at the RBC Heritage showed a lot of grit and determination from the Ryder Cup star.

"That was pretty cool," Thomas said after capping off his Sunday 68 with a clinching birdie on the first playoff hole against Andrew Novak. "That was as fun as I thought it would be." The win marked his sixteenth on the PGA Tour and comes less than a month before his return to Quail Hollow for this year’s PGA Championship.

Thomas' last win came in his exciting 3-hole playoff at Southern Hills at the PGA Championship in 2022 against fellow young star Will Zalatoris. That was a week where Thomas says he went from feeling lost on Wednesday as he worked through his swing on the range to discovering some "self-belief and a lot of patience". On Sunday he fired his third 67 of the week to emerge from a big group of contenders. "I wasn't looking at leaderboards today, I was just trying to play golf," Thomas went on to say in his winning press conference.

That steely determination led to his second Wanamaker trophy on a Sunday when he started a remarkable seven shots behind the lead.

At Quail Hollow in 2017, Thomas started his final round much closer, only two shots off Kevin Kisner’s lead. He then crafted a 3-under 68 to emerge from an eclectic pack of stars that included Patrick Reed, Francesco Molinari, Louis Oosthuizen, Rickie Fowler and Hideki Matsuyama.

Thomas entered the 2017 PGA Championship with a lot of momentum. He was in the midst of his career-best season and he played in the final group at the US Open two months prior where he finished tied for ninth.

“It just was really my comfortability of where my game was and how I felt, and the prep that I put into this week; I felt like I was ready. It just was about going out and doing it,” Thomas said that Sunday at Quail Hollow.

Highlights from his magical final round included the cliffhanging putt on the tenth which hung on the edge for a few seconds before ultimately dropping for birdie. And who can forget Thomas delivering that gutsy 7-iron on the Green Mile’s par 3 17th.

“That was one of the best golf shots I've probably ever hit in my life. It's tough, because when you get in those moments, that adrenaline, it's so hard to take something off of a club,” Thomas said in his winner’s press conference.

He shared that he needed to carry the tee shot 200 yards and a 7-iron was the club that would allow him to go all out with the adrenaline pumping so late in the championship.

“It's not a position to try to finesse something. You're pumped up, you're feeling it,” Thomas said that Sunday.

Thomas held a one-shot lead as he played the 17th, and he converted the birdie putt to take a two-shot lead and was thus able to soak in the walk down the 72nd hole in his maiden major championship win.

Many in the golf world had seen the then twenty-four-year-old’s talent on display before this initial major win, including Jason Shortall-who caddied for Thomas at the beginning of his PGA Tour career.

“He's got so much talent, a win like this is exactly what he deserved,” Shortall said on that Sunday at Quail Hollow in 2017. “He’s just a really impressive player.”

Jimmy Johnson was on the bag for Thomas’ 2017 PGA Championship win and said “it was only a matter of time” for Thomas to get his first major title.

What’s in store this year for the two-time PGA Champ? That’s just one of many storylines to follow as we get set for Quail Hollow for May 12-18.