Justin Thomas’ Tiger Woods dig backfires bigtime: ‘Put in my place’

This week provided a great example of the hold Tiger Woods still has on the game of golf. Woods missed the entire season this year, including this week’s FedEx Cup Playoffs finale. Yet it was a story about the 15-time major champion that went viral on Wednesday at the 2025 Tour Championship, shared by Justin Thomas.

Thomas, who is in the field at East Lake, regaled media members with a green-jacket put-down for the ages that Tiger dealt JT a few years back.

How Tiger used green jacket to humble Thomas

During his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday at East Lake, Thomas shared one of his favorite Tour Championship memories, dating back to the 2020 event.

Woods wasn’t in the field that year, as he recovered from one of his litany of surgeries. But Tiger provided Thomas with something to remember anyway.

It’s important to note that Thomas has a uniquely close friendship with Woods that’s different from most other pros. Living nearby each other in Jupiter, Fla., the two major champions have grown close over the past several years, as have their families.

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Due to their friendship, Thomas is comfortable doing things most pros would not — such as calling Tiger out of the blue to try and trash talk him for not making the Tour Championship, as explained during his press conference.

“I remember playing here [in 2020], playing a practice round and walking down 18 and FaceTiming Tiger and, because he wasn’t here and didn’t qualify, just showing him how the course was and how great it was,” Thomas began.

Woods only played in seven official events in the 2019-20 season, but did capture his 82nd Tour title at the Zozo Championship in December 2019. More importantly, he had won his historic fifth Masters title in April 2019. On top of that, the 2020 Masters had yet to be played, having been postponed to November due to the pandemic.

So when Thomas decided to call him, Woods was still the reigning Masters champion. And it’s that fact that Tiger used to flip Thomas’ dig on its head.

In the middle of Thomas’ FaceTime call with Tiger, the connection appeared to cut out. Tiger called back shortly afterward, but, in the meantime, he’d performed a wardrobe change.

“[Woods] acted like his phone cut out and then he called me back two minutes later with the green jacket on. I remember that very, very, very vividly. Just a typical conversation of thinking I am having some kind of upper edge, and I get shut down and put in my place pretty quickly,” Thomas said.

With Woods out of the field this week while nursing yet another injury, we’ll see if Justin Thomas learned his lesson back in 2020, or if he makes the same mistake again.

What Thomas thinks about new Tour Championship format

Of course, Woods wasn’t the primary topic of conversation during Thomas’ Tour Championship press conference. This week’s competition took up most of the minutes.

Thomas, who enters the Tour Championship ranked 12th in FedEx Cup standings, sounded somewhat satisfied with his play this season, grading his performance as “some kind of B, I think. Maybe B minus.”

He added, “I definitely know a way that could trend it toward the A direction after this week. Hopefully we can change that letter grade.”

Thomas is referring to winning the Tour Championship this week, which would give him his second-career FedEx Cup title, not to mention a boatload of cash.

And Thomas has just a good of chance as anyone this year due to a major format change. The Tour did away with the starting strokes format it had used for the past several years. So instead of starting the Tour Championship several shots behind FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler, Thomas will start at even par, along with the rest of the field.

Thomas sees that as a positive change, both for his chances at victory and the potential for a closer, more entertaining event.

“It has the opportunity to be an unbelievable week in the sense of you could have 15, 20 guys that have chance to win on Sunday, which is pretty cool when it comes to in terms of the FedEx Cup. That’s awesome,” Thomas explained. “I think with the starting strokes, it was very, very dependent on where you were, and more often than not, other than a handful of guys, your week was pretty quickly determined of your chances on the first — or not the first nine holes, but your first day.”

He continued, “If you’re starting at, say, two- or three-under or less and you don’t go shoot four- or five-under the first day, then you pretty much don’t have a chance to win anymore. You’re just trying to get as high as you can. Which there’s nothing wrong with that, but at least now everybody is starting at par. You can go salvage a potentially one-under or even a one-over round, and with three really good rounds or a great round, you’re back in it, which I think is a better position.”

Should Thomas take home the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup titles this week, it would represent his second win of the season, following his 16th-career Tour victory at the RBC Heritage in April. He added three runner-up finishes in 2025 to go along with his lone win.