Thomas steps out of the shadow of Spieth as PGA champion

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 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 favourites at Bellerive, which was starting to dry out from downpours earlier in the week.

A year ago, Thomas was one of those guys who had yet to win a major, and he wasn’t getting much attention because it had been seven months since his last victory. Any mention of Thomas included that he was “Jordan Spieth’s buddy.”

Thomas hasn’t heard that in a while.

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.

“My last couple of wins, or maybe last year probably is when ... I started to get out of that shadow,” Thomas said.

This is a deep friendship that transcends any rivalry, and Thomas was never overly bothered by the mention of being Spieth’s close friend. He understood that Spieth, who turned pro a year earlier and effectively had a two-year start on him, has more majors, has won more tournaments, reached No. 1 first and stayed there longer.

“I’ve always been my own guy,” Thomas said, “but I was perceived by the media as his buddy. Which is fine.”