Justin Thomas has only played in three tournaments since returning to action after undergoing back surgery in November of 2025.
In those events, Thomas has recorded one top-10 finish, a tie for 30th and a missed cut.
That is probably what most people would have expected, considering the lengthy layoff he had from PGA Tour action.
Thomas endured a disastrous return to professional golf four weeks ago when he finished dead-last at the Arnold Palmer Invitational after shooting two rounds of 79.
It was telling when Justin Thomas admitted to being extremely tired just ahead of The Valspar Championship two weeks ago.
The tournaments he chose to play when making his return to action raised some eyebrows, due to the difficulty of the golf courses.
He is clearly not at the top of his game and nobody expected him to be, given the amount of time he took away from playing.
However, he will be slightly worried that one of his historic strengths has really let him down over the past three tournaments.
Justin Thomas reveals what he believes is his true superpower
Thomas has been speaking on The Gravy & The Sleeze Podcast about how his all-round game feels right now.
He responded when asked to sum up his return to competitive action.
“There’s always areas I can improve,“ Thomas said.
“I mean, I’d like to just tighten up, you know, on, um, just the ball striking little things here and there.
“I was very, very pleased with … I feel like I drove it quite a bit better the last couple weeks.
“I just had, you know, a couple drives here and there at The Players that kind of cost me, at least statistically wise.
“But overall, I feel like I’ve kind of made some improvements and just, you know, just need to tighten up my iron game.
“I feel like that is something that is, you know, my, kind of my superpower, and what has given me so much success over my career.
“So, just tighten that stuff up, but it’s just really hard to explain the feelings of not playing in competition that long, and then going back into it, it’s just so many of the little things that you kind of forget about, and honestly, just trying to stay focussed for four straight days.“
Thomas’ iron play has definitely not been up to scratch since he returned to competitive action at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March.
Justin Thomas’ PGA Tour stats
Thomas has lost strokes on the field in every single key category apart from around the green so far this season.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of his game since his return to action has been his iron play.
It is by no means his worst performing category, but given the fact that it is his self-confessed strong point, the fact that he has lost 0.155 strokes to the rest of the field in every single round he has played this year is a big concern.
For context, he was ranked 38th in strokes gained approach last season, picking up 0.325 strokes on the field in every round with his iron play.
In 2024, he was ranked ninth, gaining 0.639 strokes on the field every round, while he was ranked 39th in the 2022-2023 season.
Bear in mind those two seasons were the worst years of his career.
During the three seaons before that, he was ranked 8th, 3rd and 1st in strokes gained approach, gaining a full shot in every single round on the rest of the field with his irons in the 2019-2020 season.
Before that he was only ranked outside the top 10 in strokes gained approach once all the way back to 2015, and he was in 20th position that year.
The fact that Thomas has lost strokes on the field with his irons so far this season will be a concern for him but it’s still a very small sample size. Let’s see where he’s sitting in the strokes gained approach category come May or June before a proper judgement is made.
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