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Thomas looking forward to TOC
It is clearly not a holiday vacation, but Justin Thomas can’t wait to get to Maui for the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions that is set to take place Jan. 7-10 at the Kapalua Plantation Course.
The defending champion will be making his seventh straight trip to the event, where has won twice and finished third — he has pocketed more than $3.19 million from the tournament.
“Nothing makes me happier than locking that ticket up early, for sure,” Thomas said via phone on Friday. “I think it’s a course that’s good for me. It’s not overly long, there’s a lot of par-5s, so I feel like I’m able to take advantage of them with short clubs, which is a strength of my game.”
“It also helps being a 30-to-35man field, it’s a little less people deep,” he added. “So, that’s definitely going to help your winning percentage to start the week, but it’s just such a good, relaxing week, but also I feel like I’ve taken it very seriously the last couple weeks because it’s a great opportunity to get off to a good start.”
Eleven PGA Tour tournaments were canceled due to COVID-19 over the summer. To ensure a normal-size field for Kapalua, 17 players who were not winners in 2020 but qualified for the Tour Championship were added to the Tournament of Champions eligibility list.
That has the potential to make the field the deepest it has ever been, at least since moving to Maui in 1999.
“It definitely could be, that’s the thing about that field and that event, is you know what you’re going to get every year,” said Thomas, who has 13 Tour wins, more than any current player younger than 30 years old. “This year is obviously different, but you know what you’re going to get for guys that are going to be there. There’s not going to be any surprises.
“It’s always fun. You look around the guys at Kapalua and, again, this year being different, but you look around and know that everybody else has won and they’ve earned the right to be there. So, it’s always a very, very strong field with a lot of players that are ready to have a good week, but also enjoy the week in Hawaii.”
The 27-year-old Thomas, currently ranked No. 3 in the world, will travel with his normal, small entourage — mom, dad and girlfriend — but he knows just how remarkable it is that the event is set to take place in its regular venue and time slot.
The PGA Tour returned to play in June. He is impressed with the way the tour’s COVID19 protocol has worked.
“I think successful would be an understatement,” Thomas said. “I think the PGA Tour has done a great job, but some would say that we put out a lot
of risk becoming the first sport to come back. It might be selfish or a little biased to say this, but I think we set the precedent for the rest of professional sports to come back and show that it can be done and it can be done well.”
Thomas knows he has a responsibility to his fellow golfers.
“A lot of it is more than the Tour — they do their part, but a lot of it is on us,” he said. “We need to be making the correct decisions at home when we’re off to make sure that we’re staying safe. You have to be selfless, you can’t be selfish and go to a tournament or go to a place that could get you infected or get you sick and then spread that amongst the other players and potentially have an outbreak.
“That’s what everyone has done a great job and the Tour’s done a great job, so I’m extremely proud of everybody involved with the decisions that have been made and just proud to be a member of the Tour.”
Thomas said that the limited
number of fans allowed at PGA Tour events is a challenge for him. While most Tour events during the pandemic have been held without fans, it was recently announced that a limited number of guests will be allowed at the Plantation Course, though all will be limited to an area around the 18th green.
“It’s quite a bit different, I mean it’s harder, at least in my eyes, it’s harder to get focused and to get in a zone,” Thomas said. “It feels like you’re going out and playing with your buddies on a Tuesday at home pretty much every time you tee it up.
“I mean, Augusta was so bizarre this year. It went from being probably the most fans of any tournament we play in, besides a Ryder Cup or Phoenix, to nobody out there. And it’s bizarre and totally different, but at the same time everybody has to deal with it. It’s just the times that we’re in right now. We’re lucky to be able to play and we love every
week, so we can’t get too upset about not having fans there.”
Thomas thinks the $10 million in renovations done to the Plantation Course prior to the 2020 tournament that he won in a three-way, three-hole playoff will be better this time around after a year of growth.
“Yeah, I would think so,” Thomas said. “The thing about the conditions of the golf course is a lot of it is really out of the golf course’s hands. A lot of it is weather, although Hawaii is a little different host than a lot of courses across the world. Their climate is pretty consistent and they know what they’re going to get, so they have pretty prime growing conditions in terms of a lot of rain and a lot of sunshine and warm weather.
“So, I would think that the greens will be rolling better, truer … Troon did a great job with the place and I think all of us are excited to see the change this year.”