Justin Thomas is a well-known name in golf. The former number one golfer has 15 PGA Tour wins and two World Golf Championships under his belt. However, like any other form of sports, there is a wide range of golf tournaments and championships organized per year. It is not possible for an active golfer to play in all these events. In cricket and football too, we have seen players rested for a few tournaments in a year. The players do this in order to keep themselves fresh so that they do not miss out on the major tournaments. Similar is the case in golf. In fact, the most active golfers skip around 25 PGA Tour events every year. This is highly natural.
Justin Thomas also selects to play in soe=me events, while skipping the others. However, recently he reminded us that there are some tournaments other than the majors and The Players Championship, which are too important to miss without an explanation. One such event is The Memorial Tournament. Jack Nicklaus hosts this tournament. Recently he took it upon himself to deliver a piece of bad news. Read the article to know about the bad news that Jack delivered.
The Memorial Tournament by Justin Thomas
The majority of the top golfers attend the grand slam events, The Players Championship, and the season-ending playoff events. These events are grand ones with large purses. Therefore, they are able to assemble the “A list” golfers. Other than these events it becomes difficult for the tournament organizers to bring in the top golfers. A similar thing occurs in cricket, football, and various other sports.
However, The Memorial Tournament is an exception to this general trend in golf. The legendary Jack Nicklaus hosts this tournament. Jack had been one of the great golfers of his generation. In fact, he is considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. Similar to his career, his tournament is also star-studded. 24 of the top 30 players in FedEx points have participated in this year’s tournament. Thereby, the tournament has assured the audience that they will witness an attractive leaderboard this weekend, at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin.
The past four seasons of the tournament saw the likes of Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm, and Bryson DeChambeau winning the title. These names speak for the quality of this tournament. In this year’s edition, Scottie Scheffler will be sitting out. Another major, perhaps shocking miss-out is Justin Thomas.
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Justin Thomas Called The “Boss” Before Contacting Jack
As Jack Nicklaus said, he was not the first one to know that Justin Thomas would skip this year’s tournament. Jack stated that Justin called his wife Barbara, before calling him. Nicklaus called his wife the “boss”. He jokingly stated that Justin Thomas knew that if he could “get by her, he could get by me.
Nicklaus also briefed the conversation she had with Thomas. He stated that Thomas primarily expressed his love for him and for his tournament. He also referred to their collaboration on the Panther National development to highlight the connection between the two of them. After this Justin revealed that he will be skipping this year’s tournament.
Is Thomas’s Absence Justified?
Since 2015, Justin Thomas has won 15 PGA Tours. Therefore, today he has reached an economic saturation, which leaves him with enough money to live comfortably. His career earnings will go past $50 million this season. Therefore, now he can set his schedule with only the majors in his view.
Like many other golfers, Thomas also plays only one tournament before a major. He never plays two. This helps him to remain fresh and simplifies his practice and travel management. Recently, he has developed a habit to take a week off before a major tournament. Therefore it seems that Justin Thomas has set his sight on the U.S. Open that will be coming up June 16-19. Thereby, he seems to plan to tune up his skills by playing the RBC Canadian Open just before this weekend.
He, therefore, said to Nicklaus that he had been successful in the past following the same schedule and therefore he wants to repeat the same. Nacklaus then answered him by saying that he also thought the same when he was at the age of Justin Thomas. He added that all the tournament organizers wanted them to play everywhere but “you can’t play everywhere”.
Concluding Lines
It seems that with Justin Thomas remaining absent, The Memorial Tournament will lose some luster. But there are a lot of other big names, who will definitely raise the mark. It also remains to see whether Justin succeeds in his plan for the upcoming U.S. Open. If he managed to win that, then he might be setting up a model schedule for other golfers to follow.
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