There’s no doubting Thomas is player of the year
JUSTIN THOMAS is a strong favourite to win this year’s PGA Player of the Year award ahead of lifelong pal Jordan Spieth. It has been a top campaign for the Kentuckian, who has won five tournaments over the course of the past 11 months. Justin’s haul includes a maiden major success at the US PGA plus a recent win at the Dell Technologies Championship. The 24-year-old – whose season so far eclipses Spieth’s record of three wins including The Open in July – has grown enormously in both play and reputation. Many took notice when he celebrated a breakthrough win in Malaysia in 2015 but his performances this year prove beyond doubt he is a class act. Early wins at the CIMB Classic, SBS Tournament and Sony Open – where he shot an opening round of 59 – set the tone. His major triumph at Quail Hollow a month ago was the icing on the cake and a highprofile welcome to the big time. He proved at the Dell Technologies he’s a closer and an outstanding golfer, but there’s more to come. Thomas would be very unfortunate to fall short in the race for the Player of the Year accolade, although when Spieth is the chaser you can never rule anything out. Justin and Jordan have known each other since the age of eight. They grew up playing junior golf together and it’s great to see the dominance and rivalry they enjoyed as kids being reprised in the professional ranks. It’s good for the game. I always said the Tiger Woods Effect was so strong and powerful that it would take a cadre of top players to replace him moving forward. Maybe we have reached that point, when you look at the current top four racking up 17 wins between them this season. World No.1 Dustin Johnson and No.3 Hideki Matsuyama are on four titles apiece, while Spieth and Thomas have three and five respectively. Add in a strong supporting cast – the likes of Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson have also won this year, while Sergio Garcia and Brooks Koepka have delivered majors – and exciting times lie ahead. The big question for Irish golf fans is how Rory Mcilroy fits into this pulsating plot moving forward. Rory’s a long way off the mark as things stand. Injury problems aside, he needs to end his season on some kind of a high for his own belief system. He has tumbled to sixth in the world and is 52nd in the Fedex Cup, so he needs to catch fire this week to have any chance of teeing it up at next week’s Tour Championship. Back-to-back wins for Mcilroy as the PGA season careers to its climax would put the cat among the pigeons. A huge ask admittedly, but it would be folly to say he can’t upstage Thomas and Spieth in their own backyard.