{"id":858617,"date":"2026-09-24T05:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858617\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T05:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:50:10","slug":"justin-thomas-shepherding-kid-koivun-nearly-a-decade-after-his-own-rookie-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858617\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Thomas shepherding kid Koivun, nearly a decade after his own rookie moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Thomas will shepherd rookie Jackson Koivun in Koivun\u2019s first professional team match Thursday at the Presidents Cup.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been nine years since Thomas was in Koivun\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

Thomas made his Presidents Cup debut at Liberty National in 2017, and he went 3-1-1, winning each of the first two sessions alongside veteran Rickie Fowler. The next year, Thomas was debuting in the Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very nerve-racking,\u201d Thomas said of that week in France. \u201cIt was night and day different [than the year prior], in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas then shared a story he\u2019s already told to Koivun. He and Jordan Spieth were set to play the opening fourball session together, and in the leadup, Spieth said to Thomas regarding the first tee shot, \u201cYou just let me know come Friday what you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas didn\u2019t decide until minutes before their tee time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were walking to the tee,\u201d Thomas said, \u201cand I\u2019ll never forget walking over that bridge and seeing that horseshoe and the vibration \u2026 and I\u2019m just like, \u2018I\u2019ll go. I\u2019m going to go.\u2019 He\u2019s like, \u2018You got it, you\u2019re good.\u2019 He knew exactly what I was feeling and what I was going through, and that\u2019s why he was a great partner. It\u2019s a bizarre feeling that\u2019s hard to explain, but it\u2019s pretty sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas and Spieth won that match, 1 up, against Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton. Thomas went on to lead the U.S. with a 4-1 record.<\/p>\n

Entering Thursday, Thomas boasts a 19-9-4 record between the two Cups. He\u2019s arguably been the linchpin for recent U.S. teams.<\/p>\n

These weeks have been equally beneficial to Thomas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy the golf side of it with the guys,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cThe amount of sharing and talking through stuff on weeks like this, to me, I really, really enjoy. I don\u2019t know how other guys are, but I pick the brains of my teammates and my captains a lot. I remember I would literally wait until team events to ask Phil questions because I knew that he wouldn\u2019t tell me in a regular tournament, but when we got to a team event, I knew he would because we were teammates and he wanted to help me out. I would literally wait and follow him around asking questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think it\u2019s really cool because we have the 12 best players in the U.S., and we all go about it differently, but kind of somewhat similarly in the end result, end game. But just how we all do that and get to that is just fascinating to me, and I just love hearing it because I think there\u2019s a lot of things that we all learn from each other and push each other in.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Presidents<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The first session features five fourball matches, the first of which tees off at 12:35 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Thomas shares an agent with Koivun (Excel\u2019s Lance Young), so he\u2019s already served as a mentor of sorts in the past year or so for Koivun \u2013 as much as an Alabama guy can for an Auburn Tiger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Justin, once I get my first tee shot out of the way, I\u2019m going to be good. Just kind of balancing adrenaline, nerves, everything like that to the best of my ability because I\u2019ve put myself in situations like that. I don\u2019t really know if anything is going to recreate what I\u2019m going to feel on the first tee tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Thomas: \u201cI told him that today, you\u2019re going to feel some things you\u2019ve never felt before. \u2026 Everybody out here this week is going to have a lot of shots and a couple in particular that it\u2019s like a borderline out-of-body experience. I know a lot of other 21-year-olds would kill for that feeling. It\u2019s going to be great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to watch him in the arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Presidents<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Will this year\u2019s Presidents Cup be an American blowout? Our writers and editors weigh in with predictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Thomas will shepherd rookie Jackson Koivun in Koivun\u2019s first professional team match Thursday at the Presidents Cup.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-858617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858617","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=858617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}