After 1,064 days, Justin Thomas is a winner again.
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The past 1,064 days have been a long and trying odyssey for Justin Thomas.
When he walked off the green at the 2022 PGA Championship holding the Wanamaker Trophy, he was a two-time major champion and 15-time PGA Tour winner at the age of 29. His star had continued to rise since he burst onto the PGA Tour scene with his first win in 2015.
But things started to trend downward once Thomas exited the greens at Southern Hills holding his second Wanamaker Trophy.
Since that win, Thomas has played in 59 PGA Tour events. He has recorded 16 top-10 finishes, 10 top fives and has been runner-up three times. He missed the FedEx Cup playoffs in a trying 2023 season, was left off the Presidents Cup team in 2024 and parted ways with caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay before the 2024 Masters.
Thomas tried to stay patient as his winless streak threatened to reach the three-year mark. He had the Valspar Championship in his grasp last month, but some squirrely shots down the stretch and a furious finish by Viktor Hovland saw him fall short.
Thomas’ last win might as well have come in a different life. He’s now a husband and a father.
The life changes. The failures. The climb back. All of it prepared Thomas for Sunday when he beat Andrew Novak on the first playoff hole to win the 2025 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links and complete an arduous journey back to the top.
“Winning is hard,” Thomas told CBS’ Amanda Balionis after the win. “It’s really, really hard. I’ve worked my butt off and stayed patient, stayed positive. I got a great wife, great team, great daughter. Just take for granted sometimes when you get on those runs and I didn’t realize how much I missed winning.”
He arrived at this week’s RBC Heritage believing he was close. The payoff was coming. But ending a 1,064-day drought wasn’t going to be easy. Why would it be? The journey hasn’t been.
Thomas opened with a course-record-tying 61 and backed it up with a 69 to own the lead entering the weekend for the first time since the 2022 Farmers Insurance Open.
But Thomas’ third round started with a one-shot penalty on the second hole. Thomas called the penalty on himself after his ball slightly moved while he was moving loose impediments by his ball in a waste area. Thomas said he hoped that one shot wouldn’t be the difference between the drought ending or not. If he played his game and stuck to his plan, it wouldn’t.
But Thomas lost the lead to Si Woo Kim on Saturday and entered the final round one shot back.
As he had all week, Thomas played smart, disciplined golf at the fast, firm Harbour Town Golf Links. He made birdies at five and eight to grab a share of the lead and turn at two-under. As the other contenders started to implode on the back nine, Thomas was left with just one more obstacle: South Carolina native Andrew Novak, who had the crowd behind him as he hunted for his first career win.
Novak hit wayward shots on 12 and 13, but both hit trees and kicked into the fairway. The 30-year-old rolled in a key par-saving putt at the par-5 15th to stay within one of Thomas and then poured in a 16-foot birdie at 16 to tie with two holes to play.
Thomas couldn’t shake him.
After pars on 17 and 18, Thomas walked off the green with the tournament in Novak’s hands.
Novak stuck his approach on 18 to eight feet. As Novak stalked his putt, Thomas watched anxiously in the scoring tent, waiting to see if his drought would continue for a few more weeks or if he would get one more crack to end it.
Novak’s putt left the face of the putter and never had a chance, leaving him a tap-in par and a ticket to a playoff.
Both players hit the fairway off the tee, and Thomas hit his approach to 21 feet. Novak’s strike was pure, but he didn’t get the carry he envisioned. His ball just got over the hazard, leaving him 33 feet for birdie.
Walking up to the green, Thomas looked over his fill-in caddie, Joe Greiner, and admitted he had never made a putt of length to win a tournament.
When Novak’s putt missed, Thomas had the stage to himself. He had 21 feet to close the toughest chapter of his golfing life. Twenty-one feet to move past the questions and doubts. Twenty-one feet to become Justin Thomas again.
Thomas stood over his ball and gave it a confident strike toward the hole. The ball rolled pure and took a right turn over halfway there, then cruised right into the center of the cup.
With the win, Thomas became just the seventh player since 1960 to win 16 times, including multiple majors, before turning 32. The other names: Arnie, Jack, Miller, Watson, Tiger and Rory.
All week, Thomas said he planned to trust himself. To play smart, patient and disciplined. He planned to let the tournament come to him. That’s the same mindset that helped him escape the abyss. On Sunday, it delivered him the ultimate result.
“I think the hard part about it is it’s just really hard to win,” Thomas reiterated after the win. “I feel like I’ve been playing well enough to win for a couple of years, but just because you feel that way and you are, obviously, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to.
“Obviously ’23 was tough and I was trying to work my way through it and get out of that, but I feel like I was putting more pressure on myself even last year to win than I was this year, and I just feel like my game is in such a better place and in a good spot to where I’m just really trying as hard as I can to get myself in a place mentally of just trusting and playing and just committing to what I’m doing and having the belief that it’s going to be good enough the more often I get myself there.”
Just as the ball reached the lip of the cup, Thomas dropped his putter and the past 1,064 days washed away into the Hilton Head, South Carolina, sunset.
All that was left was Justin Thomas, now a 16-time PGA Tour winner, finally all the way back.
Josh Schrock is a writer and reporter for Golf.com. Before joining GOLF, Josh was the Chicago Bears insider for NBC Sports Chicago. He previously covered the 49ers and Warriors for NBC Sports Bay Area. A native Oregonian and UO alum, Josh spends his free time hiking with his wife and dog, thinking of how the Ducks will break his heart again, and trying to become semi-proficient at chipping. A true romantic for golf, Josh will never stop trying to break 90 and never lose faith that Rory McIlroy’s major drought will end (updated: he did it).
