The College Football Playoff committee might not see it but Justin Thomas certainly does, and the two-time major winner is not afraid to call it out: Expanding the college football is a dangerous game.
Thomas, who won a national championship playing for the Crimson Tides’ men’s golf team in 2013, was not shy about giving his opinion on a 24-team college football playoff when asked about the possibility ahead of the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth this week.
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“It just seems ridiculous to me,” Thomas said. “Everybody’s always mad when they’re not let in, and it doesn’t matter how many you do — there’s always going to be teams and people pissed off that they’re not let in.
“I think you got to draw the line somewhere,” he added. “No matter how many teams are let in, there’s always going to be some that got robbed or got screwed. … The NCAA just wants to keep making that money, so they’re going to do what they can.”
The headliner at Colonial Country Club, Thomas is making his first start at the event since 2022.
Since turning 33 at the end of last month, he’s placed inside the top 25 at a pair of signature events and finished T-4 at the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink two weeks ago.
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Thomas, who had to endure a lengthy, three-hour clubhouse wait for the results, finished four strokes off eventual winner Aaron Rai.
Image for Charles Schwab Challenge – Rd 1
Charles Schwab Challenge – Rd 1
The first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge is underway at Colonial Country Club in Ft. Worth, Texas.
“It didn’t necessarily feel like I was ‘in contention,’ but I very much was,” said Thomas who shot a Sunday 65 to catapult up the leaderboard. “It’s very different of finishing when I did, versus finishing when the leaders were finishing. It’s quite a different feel. But to go out there and play the round I did when I knew I needed to was great.”
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As for what he did to pass the time while Rai and company finished up the final dozen or so holes? Watch golf, of course!
“The golf fan in me was enjoying like it was a really, really good tournament,” he told reporters Wednesday. “I obviously was hoping people weren’t making birdies, so it was kind of a strange place to be in, but it sure as hell beat being on the flight home and not having to watch or care.”
And in case you were in and around Aronimink and wondered why you didn’t see JT pacing the clubhouse, that’s because he was not there.
Thomas admitted to watching the rest of the major from his rental house with his family to avoid having “that conversation 45 times.”
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“I didn’t really feel like, to be honest, sitting in the clubhouse and every person walking by and telling me what’s going to happen or [asking] ‘what do you think?'” Thomas said.
THE PLAYERS Championship 2026 – Round Three
Charles Schwab Challenge 2026: Tee times, groupings and how to watch Round 1
Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, and the tartan jacket await a field of 132 players. Here’s when the Charles Schwab Challenge tees off Thursday.
How’s the back these days?
The recent results would indicate that Thomas’ microdiscectomy in November to repair a herniated disc in his lower back has paid off the way he expected.
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But Thomas, who battled at the beginning of his Tour return, said he was always confident in the decision that put his career on a four-month pause.
“I could sit here right now and I could find probably hundreds of people that know more than me about it that will tell me what I did was stupid and why I shouldn’t have done it,” he said of the surgery. “But at the end of the day I could do that regardless of what I did, right? So for me the biggest thing was talking, between talking to my team, but in myself is, I just had to know, I had confidence and belief and faith in what I was doing was the best thing for me.”
He added that there has been no “epiphany moment” since making his way back to playing what he considers his normal, full schedule of events.
“After all the information, everything that I had kind of gathered and talking, reading, whatever you want to call it, I felt like that was what it was,” he explained. “So it wasn’t necessarily a moment after the fact, because I felt like I had already kind of committed to that. But it’s also not something of like once you’ve hit that first driver and it feels good you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m good the rest of my life, I don’t have to worry about this ever again.’ It’s like everything: It’s a process and you got to keep working on it.”
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Charles Schwab Challenge 2026: Odds, favorites for Colonial
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With Brooks Koepka and Wyndham Clark withdrawing from Colonial, oddsmakers had to shake up the board. Who is the favorite and what is the best bet for Thursday’s first round in Fort Worth? Let’s take a look.
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