PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A dozen years before Justin Thomas won the Players Championship last March, he won the AJGA’s 2009 Wyndham Invitational and earned a berth into the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship. All the 15-year-old whipper snapper did that week was shoot an opening-round 65 to make the cut in his debut on golf’s biggest stage.
“I remember leaving there very hungry and wanting to get back,” Thomas recalled. “Looking back, it was a great learning experience for me. I drew back on that the next couple of years.”
Thomas, 28, became the first Players champion who also had played in the Junior Players, which was first contested in 2007. It won’t be long before a Junior Players champ wins the big-boy version. That’s why the time has come for the PGA Tour to recognize its new blood waiting in the wings and offer a spot to the winner of the AJGA’s Junior Players.
