THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome 16-time PGA TOUR winner Justin Thomas to the Media Center here at the Truist Championship.
Justin, you're making your first start since winning the 2025 RBC Heritage. Can you open up with some thoughts about being back here at a Signature Event?
JUSTIN THOMAS: It definitely is nice coming off of a win. Yeah, it was a nice couple weeks off. It's weird, though, it seems like the season kind of goes in waves of different times of tiredness, if you will.
It seems like -- Augusta seems to take it out of a lot of us, and Hilton Head being as tough as it was, after those couple weeks, the time off was warranted, and it was nice.
It was good to get a little bit of rest and take some time away and get back into it and back at a Signature Event, but at a new golf course for all of us that's really cool, an old school design, which I think is awesome. It should be fun.
Q. Obviously we're here at the Philadelphia Cricket Club Wissahickon course. Can you share a bit about the course? Have you played it yet? I believe you just came off of the Pro-Am.
JUSTIN THOMAS: Yeah, I played nine each day. It's really cool. I love these kinds of designs. They're fun. They obviously -- there's bits and pieces that are very -- they're very specific in terms of what the conditions give us.
I think in a perfect world we probably wouldn't have the forecast that we've had coming and what we've had early this week because it is meant to play firm and fast, especially the greens. It's a shame in that aspect, but obviously there's nothing that we can do about it or that anybody can do about it.
I think because of that it will show a fair amount of birdie opportunities, but it's still very much position golf, and you need to be able to hit it in the right spots on the greens and kind of take advantage when you can.
Q. You're in great form. You're playing well all year. You're coming off a win, and next week there's a major championship at a venue that you've already won a major at. Is there a difficulty in not getting almost too excited about where you are right now?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I'd say yes and no. It would be easy to buy into that. To be perfectly honest, Rory winning the Masters probably helped with that because I think -- rightfully so. Scottie winning last week. Those two deserve all the spotlight and the favoritism that they'll probably have next week. So I'm sure that is and was helpful for me.
It is. Like I said, I enjoyed the couple weeks off. This week obviously I do want to play well and want to give myself a chance to win, and at the same time, it is a chance to try to just kind of keep building a little bit more each and every day to get it to where we're playing well and feeling great about everything come next week as well.
Yeah, I'm sure I might feel a little bit differently when I get there, but like I said, I think I've been fortunate to have a couple of my peers play well that they may steal some of that from me.
Q. With you winning, you have a 10-year-old 5-wood in your bag that I believe is one of the oldest non-putters on the PGA TOUR. In fact, it's older than some of the Nike clubs that are still out on TOUR. Are you trying to get a new one in the bag? What's kept that club in your bag for this amount of time?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I'm not. I think there's definitely a reason it's been in there. It doesn't necessarily have as much to do with not being able to hit the newer stuff well or like how it performs. It's more of just how it performs distance-wise is what I need.
I've hit a couple of the latest 5-woods, like the last couple editions or launches, and they just go a little bit further than I would like in a 5-wood. It's just kind of a perfect club for me, I feel like. It's unique in the sense that I feel like I can hit it 230 yards if I need to, but I can hit it 265 in the air if I need to.
So it's similar to a 3-wood. If you get a good one, it's tough to replace. I have a handful of heads left, and I definitely won't be giving anybody any of them to try any time soon.
Q. You play a lot of courses that you've played in the past and they're repeated, but when you're at a new course that you haven't seen, what's your approach to the practice round?
JUSTIN THOMAS: It's very different. One of the amateurs in the Pro-Am today asked me, like what are you doing when you're out here? And I was like, well, this week is very different than normal in the sense of a place like next week I don't feel like I need to go play a practice round every day. I'll probably play maybe 18 holes total. It's just more of seeing what kind of condition the golf course is in.
A place like here, I'm probably taking a little bit more notes. I'm just looking a lot more, whether it's with the amount of slope on the greens, you can kind of see differences of different angles that you look at. It's all very in front of you off the tee, I feel like. It's just right there. It's pretty forgiving, but it really is just kind of around the greens and if you get out of position, where you need to miss it.
So I'm trying to learn those things, but fortunately for me everybody else is kind of trying to do the same thing. So it's just a part of it.
Q. Rory wins the Masters, you win RBC, Scottie sets a record, ties a record. How good is that for golf right now that three of the guys who are sort of the vanguard of the sport are not only being successful, but being successful in big spotlights? You end the drought, all that sort of stuff. How good is that for the game?
JUSTIN THOMAS: You all could probably answer that better than me just in terms of -- I appreciate that to be mentioned in the same sentence and same area, if you will, as Rory and Scottie. Obviously I think a lot of myself and my game and my accomplishments and know that I've done that. But like pretty much all of us, we all downplay everything of what we've done and what we probably feel of ourselves.
Obviously Rory winning the grand slam was huge. It was inspiring to me. Obviously it's not like I didn't realize I wanted to win a grand slam before that, but just that it's even more motivating. It is, it's such a funky game in the sense of anybody can win any week, but to have your top guys or guys that are maybe a little bit more of the needle, if you will, playing well on some of the biggest stages like Rory and Scottie did, I would assume that it is helpful.
I think that, if everybody keeps playing well and keeps putting themselves in position, that's the opportunity for names and faces to kind of grow to where we can just hopefully have more battles like we all have.
Q. Justin, if you could turn to your architecture side, Philadelphia is well-known for the quality of golf courses that are here. In your opinion, where do you think Philadelphia sits as an area where you've got places like Merion and Aronimink that people know about, but Manufacturers' and Gulph Mills and Rolling Green that maybe people haven't heard of? What do you think about the Philadelphia area for golf?
JUSTIN THOMAS: It's spectacular. Obviously I would love to play some of the other -- I haven't played Merion. I'm honestly kind of bummed that I hadn't played here beforehand because I selfishly would have tried to go play Merion while I was here, but I feel like it's in my best interest and my job to play the golf course that I'm playing this week.
But it really is just so many courses in the Northeast. I feel like obviously you don't want to be too vague and kind of group all of them together, but to me, it's just a different style and a different look of golf up here.
It is. There's a place that's really close by that I was driving past, and they all look so cool. I kind of think of it similar to like in Scotland or Ireland, it's not like -- there's no bad golf courses it seems like you can play, you know what I mean? They all look so unique. They have the old templates, the old kind of architecture and the crazy green complexes, the bunkering. Just something about the bent fairways and the rye, bluegrass rough, how it just kind of shapes the hole. It looks really cool.
I think that there's so many, so many great courses that I'm sure we could have tournaments like this at, but just the infrastructure and the property itself don't allow for all of it. So it's cool that we get to come to a new place like this and experience it and play it.
Q. What's the best shot you remember hitting with that 5-wood?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I don't know. The one on 18 at Sawgrass on Saturday and Sunday kind of come to mind. At least that's kind of what people remind me of. In terms of difficulty to repeat, I would say that's not very far up there. It just was a situation and scenario that I think made it a better shot.
I don't know. There's not anything that comes really to mind. It's just there's so many shots I feel like I can kind of create and hit with it that I just can't with a 2-iron.
Like I can hit it from -- I hit it from like 165 yards out of the rough at Torrey Pines this year. When it was raining, it was miserable, and I'm looking down in the rough, like I can't get an iron out of this, and I'm not going to hit a sand wedge and chip it out. Like I know I can just lay open this 5-wood, and I can kind of get it up around there, and I hit it to like 15 feet.
I always joke that some people go 5-wood or 2-iron, and I'm like I definitely couldn't have done that with a 2-iron. It's stuff like that, just over time you make some.
Q. There's been a bunch of talk about now that Rory won the Masters, it's very liberating, and he might go on a big run. I'm curious if you agree with that? And if you feel the same way about yourself now that you've got a win after a long stretch?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I feel like Rory was on a pretty decent run this year already. I guess it's all relative of what a big run is, if that means more majors or more tournaments, but he's played better than everybody this year, even before the Masters, without winning the Masters.
I've felt that way about my game for a little bit in the sense of over a long career, you go in runs. I know that -- both good and bad, and it's just about minimizing the bad and maximizing the good.
I've gone a couple stretches there where I feel like I've kind of won five, six, seven times in 30, 35 events, and it's there. It's just sometimes things just happen when you win versus when you don't win. I feel like I kind of saw a little bit of that at Harbour Town of things going my way and maybe just making the putts and getting the bounces when you need to.
I'm not necessarily expecting. I understand it can happen. I know that I just need to keep doing what I'm doing to put myself in the best position for it, if you will.
Q. I'm curious about your approach to the golf course this week. Rory mentioned a couple minutes ago that he noticed some design features that he could carry bunkers at 300 yards and he was going to fully attack with driver. Do you feel the same way about how you're going to go, or are you going to play more positional?
JUSTIN THOMAS: First off, I would say that's a good strategy for Rory at every golf course ever made is just to pull the driver out of the bag, unless it's a par-3, and just hit it because he hits it better than about anybody in the world.
For the most part, there is a lot of drivers. The fairways are -- they're pretty generous. They're wider than I thought on some holes. But it's super, super wind dependent. I mean, we played a different wind the last three days, wind direction in the sense of -- like the 18th hole, for instance, yesterday I hit a driver and a 6-iron. Today I hit the driver as good as I could hit it, and I hit 5-wood in.
It can play very differently in terms of some bunkers that are carryable with a certain wind and then not others. I think here it's fairway first, and it's more of a second-shot golf course, in my opinion, of where you're leaving it and putting it in the right positions and giving yourself birdie opportunities.
Q. I know you really love golf. When you finished at Augusta this year, did you stick around and watch how that thing unfolded?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I unfortunately had finished kind of like when the leaders were teeing off, but I'm a golf fan. I was very excited to get home and watch the entire round on TV.
I was fortunate to see Rory at home after that, and I joked with him. I was like, you know, as the golf fan in me, I wanted a good tournament. I wasn't necessarily -- didn't want anything -- I don't want to say like bad to happen to anybody, but I wanted -- I didn't want to see somebody win by four or five as a golf fan, not specifically who it was.
Then for a second I was like, all right, dude, it's a tournament now. You're good. You can go ahead and enjoy watching it like the rest of us.
No, I was glued to the TV, and I was very excited to watch.
Q. Are you volume on or volume off when you watch?
JUSTIN THOMAS: Good question. I don't really care. I'd say in a perfect world it's probably volume off and maybe music or other things going on. Yeah, it probably just kind of depends on the situation.
Q. Given how well you've been playing over the last six months and then just winning at Harbour Town, how do you compare your confidence level and how you feel now heading into Quail Hollow compared to where you were at maybe last year or two years ago heading into majors?
JUSTIN THOMAS: I felt pretty good with everything last year going into majors. There's even some times two years ago where I felt pretty good. It's a fickle game.
I don't necessarily at this exact moment feel as good as I did on Thursday of Harbour Town or Sunday of Harbour Town, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to feel better than that tomorrow or the next day and so on and so forth.
I think I've gotten better at of more similar of when I've played some of my best is understanding where I'm at that day. I know that I have the firepower in my game to go make 10, 11, 12 birdies in a round because I've proven that. So it's more about not -- you know, my bad round being 2-under or 1-under or 3-under. It's not shooting those over par rounds at 3, 4, 5 over.
I joked with Rev, it's like maybe I can just do a better job of vocalizing that, whether it's to him or myself, and strategically playing differently. So when I do shoot 61 on the Friday of THE PLAYERS, it's not to make the cut by a couple, it's to maybe get in the last group or something. It's little things like that that could be the difference of having chances to win tournaments than kind of finishing around that middle mark.
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