On May 22, 2022, Justin Thomas stood triumphant at Southern Hills, hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy after a playoff victory in the PGA Championship, his second major title.

At 29, ranked No. 7 in the world, he seemed poised to dominate golf’s biggest stages, a fiery competitor with a clutch gene and a resume that included 15 PGA Tour wins, highlighted by a pair of PGA majors and the 2021 Players trophy.

Fast forward to July 21, 2025, and Thomas, now 32 and still No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking, is grappling with a mind-boggling collapse in majors. Since that 2022 PGA win, he has made 14 major starts, producing just a single top-10 result: a T8 at the 2024 PGA Championship, eight shots behind winner Xander Schauffele.

More shockingly, half of those 14 starts ended in missed cuts, and beyond the T8, no other finish cracked even the top 30. For a player consistently ranked in the OWGR’s top 10 and a top tier betting favorite in nearly every major, it’s a crazy bad slump that has golf insiders and fans questioning what’s gone wrong.

Even more perplexing: his current 14-start nightmare, while coinciding with a 2023-24 career slump, persists even as he’s regained elite form elsewhere. His 2025 season, highlighted by a win at the RBC Heritage — his only victory since the 2022 PGA — has restored his status as world No. 4. Thomas appears to be a Ryder Cup lock, and his Strokes Gained: World (1.924, 8th) and approach play keep him among the game’s best.

“I feel like I’m back,” Thomas said after his Heritage win. But in majors, he’s stuck in a baffling rut, one that predates his 2023 dip and continues to defy his talent.

The numbers are brutal. Since 2022, Thomas’ 14 major starts have yielded seven missed cuts, each time scoring over-par for 36 holes: 2023 Masters (+4), 2023 U.S. Open (+14), 2023 Open (+11), 2024 Masters (+7), 2024 U.S. Open (+11), 2025 PGA (+3), and 2025 U.S. Open (+12). Beyond his 2024 PGA T8, his other finishes have been pedestrian for a player of his caliber, with not a single result inside the top-30: T37 (U.S. Open), T53 (2022 Open), T65 (2023 PGA), T31 (2024 Open), T36 (2025 Masters), T34 (2025 Open).

In 12 of these 14 starts, he was a top-10 betting favorite yet crashed repeatedly.

Thomas’ major struggles aren’t anything new. Even before this current slump, amid his prime years, his major record was underwhelming for a player of his caliber with only a single top-5 (2020 Masters 4th) outside his 2017 and 2022 major wins.

Yet, he was not nearly as dreadful on the grandest stage: starting with the 2017 season through his win in 2022, Thomas made 20 major starts and finished in the top-25 14 times compared to just one in his last 14 major appearances.

Ironically, in 2017, Thomas burst onto the major scene like a comet: a top-25 (T22) at the Masters, a top-10 (T9) at Erin Hills’ U.S. Open, and a PGA Championship win. At just 24, he looked like a future major juggernaut. But since that blazing start, his major record has crumbled into a barren wasteland — a shocking underperformance that defies explanation.

When asked about his continued struggles on the biggest stages, following another missed-cut at the 2025 U.S. Open, Thomas didn’t hold back.

“It sucks,” Thomas said. “I’m frustrated because I feel like I should be playing way better in majors, but I haven’t, so clearly I need to do something differently.

“It’s easy to be bummed or not too positive at the moment, but I’ve had a really solid year and played really well.”

The mental toll is glaring. Gone is the swagger of the cocky young gunslinger who once strutted fairways like he owned them. Now, Thomas prowls major courses like a man desperate for a cigarette, a nervous twitch, new and unsettling, betraying the pressure that’s strangling his game.

“One bad swing snowballs,” he said after missing the 2024 Masters cut.

As the 2025 major season comes to a close, the golf world will have to wait nine months (April 2026) to see if the once fiery Kentuckian rediscovers his major game, or risk a legacy defined by what might have been. With only one Tour win since 2022, and a major record that’s “crazy bad” for his pedigree, the pressure is mounting.