Thomas out to defend his title

St. Louis — A walk from the driving range to the 10th tee at Bellerive took longer than usual for Justin Thomas.

One marshal wanted an autograph. Another wanted a selfie.

He made it under the tunnel to find two more people stopping him for pictures. Thomas eventually made it up the stairs, onto the putting green and up a slight hill to the tee box with thousands of fans crammed on both sides and every seat in the grandstands occupied. That's where some degree of normalcy returned.

He was playing with Tiger Woods.

This was only Wednesday afternoon, and it's certain to be far more boisterous for the start of the 100th PGA Championship when Thomas tries to become only the second player PGA CHAMPIONSHIP 2 p.m., Bellerive CC (TNT)

in 60 years of stroke play to successfully defend his title.

The other was Woods, who has done it twice.

"Being the deepest field in golf and a great golf course and a lot of players trying to knock off that major here at the end of the year that haven't gotten one yet this year ... any tournament is a tough one to win, but this one especially is," Thomas said.

Thomas is coming off his first World Golf Championship title last week at Firestone and is among the favorites at Bellerive, which was starting to dry out from downpours earlier in the week.

He won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow (Spieth was among those who hung around to share in the moment) added a FedEx Cup playoff event (Spieth was the runner-up), captured the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus and swept all the big awards, just like Spieth had done two years earlier. Dating to last year at the PGA, Thomas has won five times. Spieth has gone more than a year without winning.