Justin Thomas backs radical PGA Tour plan on eve of The Players: "I've talked to many officials about it"

Justin Thomas says he's behind the idea to name and shame the slowest players on the PGA Tour in an effort to speed up rounds. 

Thomas opened up on the thorny subject on the eve of the 2025 Players Championship at famed TPC Sawgrass. 

Pace of play on the PGA Tour has been a focal point of discussion all season after concerns were raised by fans, players, officials and even on-course commentators. 

Thomas told reporters in his news conference on Tuesday that he's behind the idea of the Tour releasing data and not just circulating the information in the locker room. 

"I mean, I'm the first to admit I mean I'm on the slow side of players," Thomas said. 

"It bothers me, but I've talked to many officials about it, like I want to know why I'm slow because obviously the first thing that any slower player thinks is that they're not slow."

He added: "I never want to be the guy that gets paired with somebody and that person is like, 'Oh, my gosh, I have to play with Justin, he's so slow'.

"Because I know guys that I get paired with that I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, I have to play with so-and-so, they're so slow', and it's not a good feeling because you know you're going to be on the clock, you know, and that's not fun."

Thomas said he does believe the Tour is making progress with pace of play. 

"But at the same time it can always get better," he said.

"It's just finding the fine line of improving it and making sure that it's improvement that's needed, while not jeopardizing the game and just the reality.

"When you play at a place like an Open Championship when the greens are nine [on the stimpmeter], the ball's not really going to ever get outside of tap-in versus last week like it's really hard to hit a pu

tt and be able to finish after that. 

"Like it's just hard to get the ball around the hole because of how fast the greens are."

Collin Morikawa said he didn't see why any golfer would take issue with the data being released. 

"To me, there's no issue with letting it out, right?" Morikawa said.  

"It's only going to make things better because then you’re either going to have a target on you, put a little more pressure and hopefully you pick it up, or you get penalised. It's very simple."

Commissioner Jay Monahan later said in his annual news conference that the Tour plans to release pace of play data. 

But he stopped short of confirming whether names would be shared. 

Monahan did say, though, that a new pace-of-play policy will be trialled on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas where golfers would be subject to penalty strokes. 

Rangefinders will also be tested in the six Tour events between the 2025 Masters and US PGA Championship, he said.