LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Justin Thomas is heading back to the Ryder Cup, and this time, he didn’t need a lifeline to get there.
Thomas, a native of Goshen, Ky., was announced Wednesday as one of U.S. captain Keegan Bradley’s six picks for the 2025 Ryder Cup team, which will face Europe at Bethpage Black in New York next month.
It will be Thomas’ fourth appearance in the biennial event, where he holds an impressive 7-4-2 career record. He’s the most experienced player on a U.S. team filled with fresh faces and surging form.
Two years after being a controversial pick for the 2023 squad despite a lackluster season, Thomas finished seventh in the 2025 Ryder Cup points standings — just outside automatic qualification — and snapped a winless drought with a victory at the RBC Heritage in April. He enters Bethpage ranked No. 5 in the world and coming off a Top 10 finish at the Tour Championship, his eighth such finish this season.
“Justin is the heartbeat of our team,” Bradley said. “He had an amazing win at RBC this year. He’s the fifth-ranked player in the world. This guy was born to play Ryder Cups, and specifically, I think, at Bethpage Black.”
Thomas, 32, a two-time winner of the PGA Championship, graduated from St. Xavier High School in Louisville and learned the game from his father, Mike Thomas, longtime head pro at Harmony Landing Golf Club in Goshen. He has long embraced the intensity and camaraderie of team competition and said Wednesday that being back on the U.S. roster meant something deeper this time around.
“Everybody is here for a reason,” Thomas said.
He said his advice to his younger teammates would be, “To be ready when we get there and enjoy it — because it’s going to be a pretty crazy, wild week.”
The U.S. team features four rookies and a captain making an emotional call of his own: Bradley, who played well enough to be considered for the team, left himself off the roster in favor of players like Thomas, Collin Morikawa, and breakout star Ben Griffin.
“I was chosen to be the captain of this team,” Bradley said. “My ultimate goal was to be the best captain that I could be. And this is how I felt like I could do that.”
For Thomas, who missed last year’s Presidents Cup, it’s another opportunity to lead, and to thrive under pressure.
“It’s a totally different vibe when you're there,” he said. “You're battling for each other, not just yourself. And it makes these events that much more special.”
Thomas now stands as the veteran voice in a room full of rising stars — and in a raucous New York atmosphere, his Ryder Cup résumé could be one of Team USA’s biggest assets.
For his part, Thomas is just looking forward to the experience.
“I think I've developed some unbelievable friendships in these events,” he said. “These are guys that we obviously are all very friendly and cordial and see each other all the time, but it's just … an opportunity to get to know them, their wives, families, whatever it may be, and it's probably a good thing that these events happen every so often because they do make them that much more special.”
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