“Their priorities are still set on the majors” - Justin Thomas shares insights on LIV Golf's offseason acquisitions and priorities of players
For Justin Thomas, the fact that players are going to LIV Golf does not eliminate their aspirations to play in the major tournaments. In fact, Thomas believes that the majors are still their priority.
Justin Thomas holds a spot in the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am field thanks to being ranked 26th in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). He adressed a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 30, from the event venue, and naturally, the topic of Tyrrell Hatton and LIV Golf took its share of the spotlight.
A reporter asked Justin Thomas for his thoughts on what LIV Golf storylines would be during the 2024 season. Here's what Thomas had to say (via TenGolf):
"Yeah, at least from what Greg [Norman] said, they haven't gotten anything close to what he's kind of said. It sounded like they were going to sign 10 or 15 people over however many months and haven't. I don't really know enough about what's going on to even kind of give a storyline."
He continued:
"I think at the end of the day the guys that are out there that are still, (if you want to call it) kind of in their prime, or can still play their best golf, I would say that their priorities are still set on the majors versus their season out there. So I think that the storylines, in my opinion, will continue to be if those guys play well in major championships and win major championships."
On Tuesday, LIV Golf announced the inception of the Legion XIII team, captained by Jon Rahm. In addition to Tyrrell Hatton, the team will include Kieran Vincent and Caleb Surrat.
The LIV Golf season begins next Friday at LIV Golf Mayakoba.
Justin Thomas' performance ahead of the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
The 2022-2023 season was one of the worst of Justin Thomas' professional career. Though his results weren't disastrous, the player was not at all happy with what he achieved.
However, at the end of 2023 there was a change in the golfer's performance. The two time major champion finished fifth at the Fortinet Championship in September, fourth at the Nedbank Golf Challenge (DP World Tour) in November, and third at the Hero World Challenge in December.
Thomas began 2024 with a third place finish at the Farmers Insurance Open. At Torrey Pines he finished with a score of 27 under, just two strokes behind the surprising Nick Dunlap.
This is his second start at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His debut in the tournament was 10 seasons ago, in the 2014 edition, when he couldn't make the cut. Thomas had another experience at Pebble Beach Golf Links. It was the 2019 US Open, where he also failed to make the cut.