At 32 years old, Justin Thomas struggles to think of himself as one of the \u201cveterans\u201d on this year\u2019s American Ryder Cup squad, wincing at the thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I associate the veteran with an older player, and I\u2019m just not quite ready for that yet,\u201d Thomas said Tuesday. But with 2025 being his fourth Ryder Cup appearance, Thomas is the elder statesman of sorts for Team USA and has already become a shoulder to lean on for some of the \u201crookies\u201d at this year\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n
The U.S. has four players on this year\u2019s team who are making their first appearance at the Ryder Cup, making a player like Thomas an invaluable resource. He brings a wealth of experience to the squad along with a bit of success.<\/p>\n
Justin Thomas of the United States follows his shot during a practice round before the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black on Sept. 24, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Justin Thomas of Team United States and his wife Jillian Thomas arrive to the Ryder Cup Teams\u2019 Welcome Dinner on Sept. 23, 2025. Getty Images<\/p>\n
He had been the leading points scorer for the United States in his Ryder Cup debut in 2018 and was a large part of the title-winning team in 2021 at Whistling Straits. He has compiled a 3-0-0 record in singles play during his Ryder Cup career and enters this year\u2019s competition with an overall record of 7-4-2.<\/p>\n
Russell Henley said Thomas had been helpful in little aspects of the game, as well as being someone who has brought \u201can encouraging and fun attitude\u201d to the group.<\/p>\n
J.J. Spaun, this year\u2019s U.S. Open winner, described how talking with Thomas in particular helped put him at ease about being part of this year\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n
A view of Justin Thomas\u2019 shoes at the Ryder Cup on Sept. 23, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve talked to J.T. quite a bit, and he\u2019s like: You earned your spot on this team, don\u2019t feel like this is a handout or a pick. You have a major that a lot of us are very jealous of, and you deserve to be on this team,\u201d Spaun said. \u201cI think hearing that has helped me feel like I fit in more as a core player than a rookie that is just trying to make some sort of impact. So I think that\u2019s huge for my confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Though Thomas later added that he recognizes he is one of the leaders on the American side, he was quick to point out that leadership is going to come from a number of the players.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be anything that I feel like I need to be for this team, for certain players, for the captains,\u201d he said. \u201cYeah, I know that I\u2019m one of the leaders on the team, but I don\u2019t think there\u2019s necessarily one person on the team the last handful or couple times I\u2019ve been on that I\u2019m like, this is the person that when in doubt, you\u2019re looking at them like what do we do or what\u2019s going on kind of thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s kind of what has made this group, this age group or whatever you want to call it, a little bit different and special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 32 years old, Justin Thomas struggles to think of himself as one of the \u201cveterans\u201d on this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[72968,427,28868,11383,99],"class_list":["post-178909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-bethpage-black","tag-golf","tag-justin-thomas","tag-ryder-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}