This week’s Players Championship saw Justin Thomas miss the cut, which prompted Brooks Koepka’s LIV Golf team Smash GC to respond angrily.
PGA Tour player Justin Thomas was made fun of by Brooks Koepka’s LIV Golf team Smash GC after he missed the cut at this week’s Players Championship.
Prior to the competition at TPC Sawgrass, the two-time PGA Championship winner made a clever remark about Talor Gooch, a player on Koepka’s team. It comes after Gooch asserted that the conspicuous absence of LIV Golf players would make the Masters less special even if Rory McIlroy won.
Prior to the Players Championship, which is referred to as the “fifth major” in golf parlance, Thomas was questioned concerning the absence of elite players such as Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm. “I mean, it’s still been the best field in golf for many previous years,” the American said in defense of the competition. Yes, you could always counter that there are other competitions that aren’t.
“I’m not saying that for selfish reasons; it’s just the truth; the PGA Championship has had the deepest field in terms of the most top 100 players.”
After making fun of Gooch’s “asterisk” comment, Thomas said, “I understand what you mean when you talk about the World Ranking and guys who are or aren’t on the Tour anymore.
However, that’s just the way things are; they put themselves in that situation, and, well, I mean, I won’t have an asterisk next to my name because the field wasn’t that strong.
Naturally, following a challenging week, Thomas didn’t need to worry about an asterisk victory. The 2021 winner ended the second round of the tournament one over par and missed the cut by two shots after a frustrating two-over-par 74.
Following Thomas’s unfortunate event, Koepka and Gooch’s Smash setup had no choice but to poke fun at him. Taking to X, the official Smash GC account added a cutting scissors emoji and an asterisk to a tweet that featured quotes from Thomas from earlier this week.
Despite a strong 2023, Gooch is one of several LIV stars missing from the Masters this year. Prior to being named the season-long champion, the American claimed three victories on the LIV setup in the previous campaign.
Unfortunately for Gooch, however, LIV’s lack of global recognition has caused him to stray far from major qualification, meaning he will miss all four flagship events, including the trip to Augusta National next month.
