MEDINAH, Ill. — Ten yards to Justin Thomas’ right sat the player he used to be. Jackson Koivun is this Presidents Cup’s curiosity, a 21-year-old who months ago was competing against college kids and now commanded a not-small horde of reporters wondering what it’s like to be golf’s next big thing. Thomas spent much of his press conference answering questions about Koivun, partly because he has been tasked with shepherding the rookie through Medinah, but mostly because you don’t have to squint to see the symmetry. Not long ago Thomas arrived on Team USA as a fledging talent who wanted the moment and wasn’t shy about saying so. Now … well, Thomas is not old, but he is old enough to watch someone else begin the climb and understand how far he has traveled.
“I want to be there to help any kid that’s kind of going through what he was going through,” Thomas said about Koivun’s fast assimilation into these ranks. “I think the decision of turning pro and staying in school was hard. He’s a great teammate to his guys, and he didn’t know what to do what was right, what was wrong, so on and so forth. I just wanted him to know if he’s here if he wants somebody to bounce things off of, and I feel like he did that, and a lot of people in his position wouldn’t have.”
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But Thomas was also answering questions because he is his ownself in these events. Few American players over the past 25 years have been as open as Thomas about how much Ryder and Presidents Cups mean to them. He screams and pounds his chest, needles opponents and carries on enough to royally infuriate them. There’s never been much mystery about whether Thomas wants to be there and a case can be made that his enthusiasm has raised the temperature in the American locker room. He’s not just an emotional avatar; he has the best winning percentage of any U.S. player with at least 10 matches at the Presidents Cup with a 10-3-2 record, and despite the Americans’ collective struggle at the Ryder Cup, Thomas has been the aberration at 9-6-2. He gets this dynamic in a way we all think we could if we were in his position.
It’s a record that can’t be explained simply because he’s good, because while he is that, there have been a fair amount of solid Americans that haven’t done what he’s done in these events, so I had to ask what, exactly, makes these weeks so fulfilling for him that we can’t see. And Thomas began by talking about Phil Mickelson.
Thomas explained he really enjoys the golf side of the week. The camaraderie in an isolating sport, sure; all the guys say that. But to Thomas, it’s the sharing, talking about the craft. It’s a chance to funnel his curiosity.
“I remember I would literally wait until team events to ask Phil questions because I knew that he wouldn’t tell me in regular tournament,” Thomas explained. “But when we got to a team event, I knew he would because we were teammates and he wanted to help me out. I would literally wait and follow him around asking questions.”
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It’s an amusing image, Thomas trailing Mickelson around, tugging at his shirt like a kid who has just discovered “why” and won’t stop asking. It also may be the best explanation for why Thomas excels in these events, and why he became one of the best players in the sport. Everyone on tour has the talent to be there, yet rising above that company requires the appetite to keep searching and the humility to believe someone else may know something you don’t. Thomas pestered the captains and veterans and peers because he believed there were answers in their head that could make him better and he was willing to risk becoming a nuisance to get them. That instinct translates particularly well to team golf, where understanding how another player thinks can matter as much as understanding your own game.
And, frankly, that past curiosity explains why he’s presently here.
There’s no need to relitigate that Thomas has not been the same player since winning the 2022 PGA Championship. He was a controversial captain’s pick for the 2023 Ryder Cup team and missed the team entirely in 2024. There was a resurgence last year, when he won at Hilton Head and returned to the Ryder Cup, but back surgery interrupted that momentum. This season brought only two top-10 finishes in 17 starts. He failed to qualify automatically for Medinah and was selected by captain Brandt Snedeker on the belief what we’ve seen from him lately is not the same player we’ll see this week. There is nothing unfair about asking whether past performance should continue buying future opportunities, especially when players with better seasons were left home, and Thomas knows that as well as anyone, asserting that it was weird to be left off in 2024 despite having a better season than he did in 2023.
He knows these rooms are no longer guaranteed, and that may be part of why his answer Wednesday was revealing. He’s at his best not because he gets to play for the crowds, or to be the hero. He talked about listening.
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“We have the 12 best players in the U.S., and we all go about it differently,” Thomas said. “Just how we all do that and get to that is fascinating to me.”
Thomas said earlier this year the thing that impressed him the most about Koivun was his curiosity. “I’m always impressed with kids in college that ask questions and want to learn because that’s very much how I was,” Thomas said. “He thinks about stuff the right way.” After searching for answers, Thomas is now the one expected to provide them. The best explanation for how he traveled the distance between those 10 yards is that he never stopped asking.
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