Justin Thomas will combine playing his hometown US PGA in Louisville with cheering on Leeds United in the Championship playoffs.
The double Major champion and Jordan Spieth are minority shareholders in the Elland Road club after investing in the San Francisco 49ers’ ownership group last year. Hollywood star Will Ferrell also joined last week.
World No.31 Thomas is from Louisville and was “inspired” by Tiger Woods’ famous win on the Kentucky course back in 2000. And the American is hoping to see more history made back on the other side of the Atlantic by getting promoted back to the Premier League through the playoffs - starting by beating Norwich in the second leg semi-final on Thursday after his opening round here.
“I'm very excited about my morning tee time on Thursday,” he said. “That has worked out nicely for that 3 o'clock game (8pm kickoff in the UK). Right now I like the fact that they're playing at Elland Road. I know that they're a tough team to beat there, so I'm excited to watch.”
Leeds, who drew the first leg 0-0 at Carrow Road, have failed to get promoted in five previous playoffs attempts starting back in 1987. Thomas, who won his second US PGA title in a playoff in 2022, added: “My advice is very different than probably anything that would be useful or helpful to them, but I know I've really, really enjoyed learning a lot more about the sport. Between Billy Foster (Matt Fitzpatrick’s Leeds-supporting caddie) Jordan and I, we've definitely become a lot closer over the last year, and he's given us a lot of insight and knowledge of Leeds and whatnot and sending us videos from games."
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Leeds United will host Norwich City in the second leg of the playoff semi-final on Thursday (Joe Toth/REX/Shutterstock)Thomas has struggled with his game over the last year and has missed the cut in four of his last five Majors. But the 15-time PGA Tour winner, now 31, will enjoy huge crowd support this week. “It's very special to be here,” he said. “I would say this tournament at this golf course is a lot of reason I feel like for my love for professional golf and wanting to win majors and golf tournaments and watching Tiger here in 2000 in person.
“I obviously don't remember a lot, being seven years old. But I remember just being inspired, being very in awe. I just hadn't been to anything that big. I mean, the energy that week was crazy.
"The Kentucky Louisville sports fans are, they're sports fans and we don't get golf tournaments really ever, let alone major championships, and when it comes here I think you see that with some other Midwest venues, that they love it.
Justin Thomas watched Tiger Woods win the 2000 US PGA as a seven-year-old - and is now a friend of the 15-time Major winner (Getty Images)"Just the energy was crazy that week and just hearing the roars in person. You're on one side of the course, you hear it on another side of the course, or maybe I'm inside and I could hear it where wherever it was going on.
"As a seven-year-old that's pretty cool to hear in person. You think you can do anything when you're that age, but watching Tiger and Bob May duel it out and how it all ended and me being a Tiger fan that I was, it was about as perfect of a week as I could have imagined. Not that you know what you want to do when you're seven years old, but I had a pretty good idea that I wanted to play golf.”
Asked about handling the pressure in Valhalla, he smiled: Well the good news is that I have a pretty easy time putting a lot of pressure on myself already, so that shouldn't be too much of an adjustment.”
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