Justin Thomas Continues to Struggle; Is Getting Hitched to Blame?
This past weekend, I received a text “Dude, Justin Thomas registered a 82 today at the Open.” This was sad to see as he is one of my favorite players. I even mentioned him in my post about Erin Hills and he is just a relatable golfer with a good sense of humor and one of the best instagram handles of any professional golfer.
Anybody that is a golf fan has grown to appreciate the golf game of Justin Thomas, he became a pro in 2014 and within two years; he was a contender in any tournament that entered. He has relatable sound bites and a seemingly a genuinely decent dude. Just today they showed him bring an 11 year old kid out to hit a shot during his practice round at the TPC Twin Cities. How can you root against this guy. I do need to throw in though that I have to give him a pass on his Bama affiliation; I get it, he went there. But it is in my blood to dislike Bama, the Yankees, and Ohio State. Check out this youtube mash up of his reactions to his different golf shots.
But now something is off, a disruption in the force; Justin Thomas has been struggling or in some sort of major golf slump. I have heard a few theories, he needs a new coach (and leave his dad), or he is fine, he’s just had a few bad rounds; but I am not so sure. I mean he is currently projected to not even make the Fed Ex championship this year! His spot on the Ryder Cup is certainly at risk as well this year as he has missed the cut in 4 of his last 6 tournaments. Which leads me to a hypothesis that is a bit outside the box. I think the drop in performance is due to his 2022 marriage and I think it may get worse (his golf game) before it gets better.
I am not speaking ill of marriage, but I think we can all agree it is a change in lifestyle and that can certainly alter focus and headspace. I also have a theory that pro golfers have the hottest wives of all pro athletes, with QB’s from the SEC in a close second; but I digress. As an avid fantasy sports participant, I have noticed how relationships can effect sports performance: like when Tony Romo was dating Jessica Simpson or anytime Aaron Rodgers is in new celebrity relationship. And I would argue that golf needs the most focus and routine (check my previous piece on morning golf routines) of any sport. And after remembering seeing that Justin Thomas was recently married (via Intstagram), it made me think that this new marriage could be the culprit to his poor golf performance. To test this hypothesis I created a database that logged annual world golf rankings and then compared them to when a golfer got hitched. I used July rankings of each year as a proxy to decipher peak season form. And what I found supported my hypothesis.
Evidence Support Number 1: Justin Spieth
Jordan Spieth sees a downturn in performance the years after he weds.
Justin Spieth profiles very much like JT as he burst on the golf scene and was very good almost right away. Jordan won 3 majors with is last one coming in 2017, the year before he was wedded, And as you look into his world rankings you see that in 2019 he starts to really trend down in performance and bottoming in 2020; and finally starts to recover by 2021 and may be almost all the back now in 2023. This can be concerning for JT, as this graph tells me that it may get worse for JT before it gets better; on the bright side, Jordan was able to make the adjustments and after two years of down years.
Evidence Support Number 2: Rickie Fowler
Rickie Fowlers world golf rankings pre and post wedding.
Rickie Fowler is another professional golfer that is showing a drop off in performance after getting married, in 2019. Another fan favorite known for his unique attire and relatable personality. Fowler has never achieved the same level of success as Thomas or Spieth, but still he has won multiple PGA Tour, though he has yet to secure a major championship win. In Rickie’s case he was married in 2019 and then immediately starts a three year down trend where he bottomed with a world ranking of, gulp; 152. So a three year skid post marriage before he finally turns his game back around and I suspect will get back closer to the top 10 how he has been playing this seeing.
There are plenty of other examples of golfer having this sort of drop in golf performance after tying the knot or getting into a new relationship. But showing Fowler and Spieth seemed most relevant as they are in the same era and have had similar trajectories.
Tiger Woods the Goat - A Reference
Tiger Woulds retains dominance through 2004 marriage, but slips a bit post going through one of the worst public divorces in history.
I thought it would be worthwhile to show Tiger Wood’s early career world golf rankings, and no surprise that getting married in 2004 had no effect on his golf performance. So it is possible to maintain focus on the sport of golf even with major life events. However, the drive and will to not only succeed but to dominate is maybe a 1 in a million, we are all just lucky to have been able to watch it. Tiger famously had a very ugly divorce and public blow up of his sex life (no need to go into it here), but that did have an effect on his performance dropping all the way to a world golf ranking of 23 after his divorce. In true goat fashion, he recovered back to 3 and then first again in the world in short order. The next chapter of his world rankings were largely driven by his injuries so those are not relevant for this.
Conclusion
I hate to say it but after looking at how other golfers in Justin Thomas’s peer group have performed post marriage, signs are pointing that Justin is in something more than just a slump. JT has made a major change in lifestyle and this in all likelihood is creating a prolonged downtrend in performance. I can’t say why these happen, but you can have some fun drawing your own your conclusion’s. Signs are also pointing to JT likely not coming out of this post wedding dip until the 2025 season. Potentially he recovers earlier, but most take two years. Of course we will still root for Justin Thomas and want to see him playing on Sunday, but I would keep Justin out of your Draftkings line-ups for the foreseeable future.
I did not mention Dustin Johnson in this post but I want to briefly mention that Dustin married Paulina Gretzky last fall as well and we have seen his performance drop off as well. I am not convinced that it would be as big of a concern for his golf game considering him and Paulina have been the Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn of golf couples; unwed bliss with kids. But maybe this change his affecting him too. It would be wise to see how things progress from him as well. And let’s all hope Viktor Hovland stays single for enough time to win some majors!