PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Two of the best young golfers in the game today — players who appear poised to make significant leaps into the conversation as the best in the world — took very different paths and have very different demeanors.
When Justin Thomas was a kid growing up in Louisville, Ky., he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life and how to go about chasing his dream of becoming a professional golfer.
That all began with looking like a professional golfer.
“While all the other kids were wearing shorts, I wore pants in every tournament from when I was 8 years old until I was 16,’’ Thomas said. “I felt like professionals did it, and I wanted to be like them. I probably intimidated a couple kids or made them curious or confused why I was wearing pants — especially in Louisville in the summer when it’s 95 and humid.’’
Thomas — now 23 and having won three times already this season, including two in a row in Hawaii in January — is more than looking the part as one of the best players in the game now. He is not short on confidence, though there is not an offensive cockiness about him.
“He’s got no fear,’’ fellow PGA Tour youngster Daniel Berger said of his friend.
“He’s not scared,’’ Rickie Fowler said. “If he gets it going, he’s going it keep pushing on the gas. You can’t be scared out here. You’ve got to believe. ‘J.T.’ definitely doesn’t lack confidence, but in good way. He’s not cocky by any means. It’s pretty special to see what he’s done the last few months.’’
The same can be said for 25-year-old Belgian Thomas Pieters, who has raised his profile in the game rapidly by starring for the European Ryder Cup team, for which he went 3-1 despite the Americans’ victory in 2015.
Pieters, though, does not possess the outward confidence that Thomas does. In fact, when he was a freshman at the University of Illinois in 2010, he was so homesick he reached out to his parents in Belgium and said he wanted to quit school and come home.
“I had pretty strict parents growing up, and they didn’t let me go back home,’’ Pieters said. “My parents are big into, ‘If you start something, you finish it.’ You don’t give up after a half a year just because it’s not going your way, because of the language barrier and the distance. I’m really happy I didn’t go home.’’
Asked if he ever wonders what would have come of his golf career had he quit college, Pieters said, “I don’t want to think about it.’’
Pieters won the 2012 individual NCAA Division I championship the next year and now is one of the game’s longest bombers off the tee. He is considered one of the best young golfers in the world, a player who 2015 European Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke compared to a young Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in raw talent.
“He has that amount of talent,” Clarke said.
After Pieters won two of his Ryder Cup matches partnering with McIlroy, McIlroy said, “I’ve got a partner beside me for the next 20 years. I’m not letting anyone else have him.’’
Both Thomas and Pieters are playing this week’s Honda Classic, which began Thursday, but neither had a particularly strong opening round. Thomas is 1-over par, seven shots off the lead held by Wesley Bryan and Cody Gribble, and Pieters, who finished runner-up to Dustin Johnson at last week’s Genesis Open, is 2-over par.
That, however, doesn’t figure to derail their progress, and there still are three rounds remaining at PGA National’s Champions Course.
Thomas has watched his contemporaries McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and now Dustin Johnson seize the moments the past three years, and Thomas burns to do the same.
“There’s a lot of opportunity and a lot of things that could happen this year, and the start that I got off to was great,’’ Thomas said. “But thing is, I won so early that in three months, if, say, I don’t play well, no one is going to remember those three wins. That’s just how this game goes.’’