DETROIT — Justin Thomas is not in Detroit for some coney dogs or to work on his tan on Belle Isle.
Thomas, a two-time winner of the PGA Championship who suddenly has fallen on the hardest times of his stellar professional career, is here because he has to be.
Thomas is in danger of missing the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time. He sits 66th in the standings, and this year, only the top 70 get in, down from 125 in previous years.
"Quite a bit, to be honest," Thomas said Wednesday, when asked how much his position affected his decision to add Detroit to his schedule for the first time. "I would love to be able to kind of have the same schedule I have in the past, but at the same time, I wish it was under different circumstances.
"But I'm very glad to be here, you know what I'm saying? It's one of those things where you get some years you need to add some events, some years you need to take some off based on injury, where you are in the points, or wanting to play in an event, wanting not to, family obligations, whatever it is."
Regardless the reason, Thomas' situation is Detroit's gain, as he joins Collin Morikawa as tournament headliners playing the Rocket Mortgage Classic for the first time in the tournament's five-year history.
Thomas, 30, is playing golf in Michigan for the first time since 2010, when he competed in the U.S. Junior Amateur at Egypt Valley outside Grand Rapids. That was five years before he joined the PGA Tour, and quickly took the game by storm. He's a 15-time PGA Tour winner, including the 2017 and 2022 PGA Championships.
But he hasn't won this year, the first time he's had to say that since joining the PGA Tour.
He's missed the cut in two of three majors, including at the U.S. Open in Los Angeles, when he bottomed out, departing with an 81.
"I learned a lot from the U.S. I felt like I was playing — I know I was playing the best golf that I've played in a really long time. I mean, I'm talking two, three, four, five years," Thomas said. "Because of that, my expectations got up and I fully expected to go win that golf tournament.
"I was playing more golf swing that I was golf, and that got in the way."
So last week, at the Travelers Championship outside of Hartford, Connecticut, Thomas took a different approach. He worked on the fundamentals in his practice sessions, but when time came to hit the course, he just kept it simple and played golf. Good golf, it turns out.
Thomas tied for ninth last week, jumping inside the top 70 of the FedEx Cup playoffs. It was his first top-10 since March.
"I kind of said, 'Screw it,'" Thomas said. "When I'm out there, I just need to go play."
At his peak, Thomas reached No. 1 in the world golf rankings, in 2018.
He's 17 now, so he's still very good, obviously. But, again, it's all about expectations, and Thomas' have always been high.
That's why when things went south this season, he was battling not just his golf swing, but also the emotional side of the game. Every golfer can relate.
"It's tough," he said. "I work on it like I work on my wedge game. I practice it. I try to learn from it, like I do every tournament."
Sometimes, it just takes a little nudge — like a text from wife Jillian he woke up to last Thursday, on the eve of the Travelers.
"It resonated to me and it really hit home better than anything I've heard," Thomas said. "Just basically said remember why you love this game and why you play this game and why you're out there, just enjoy that and kind of take it in. It hit home for me.
"So last week, any kind of challenge I faced, anything good that happened, anything bad that happened, I just kind of remembered this is why I play professional golf."
There are different variations of a slump.
Max Homa, 32, has won twice this year, but comes in on the heels of missing back-to-back cuts. He laughed at the suggestion he's in a slump.
"I would not quite call this one a slump," said Homa, who tied for 24th here last year, and is third in FedEx Cup points. "My last round I played was a bogey-free round, so in my actual slump I had a lot more birdie-free rounds. So I think I'm sitting just fine."
Morikawa, 26, meanwhile, sits 32nd in FedEx Cup points, but he hasn't won since 2021 after taking the golf world by storm with five wins in two years, including the PGA Championship and British Open.
"Frustrating's a word I can use," said Morikawa, whose last top 10 was at the Masters in April. He's battled a back injury that forced him to withdraw from the Memorial, where he was in contention, this month. "Look, it all comes down to just winning. You can miss 20 cuts and have two wins. And I'd love to win. It's not the consistency I'd want, but you get my point. Winning to me is everything. You've got to learn how to close, you've got to be able to do it."
Thomas knows how to do it, of course, even though it's been a little while — at least, by his standards.
He recently made the move to the AimPoint green-reading process, which could help at DGC, where putting is everything on a course where the winning score is again expected to be 20 under or lower. Thomas' putting — he ranks 151st — is much to blame for his subar season.
He has considered adding Detroit to his schedule the last couple of years, especially last year, the first year he was officially endorsed by Detroit-based Greyson Clothiers (he attended a Greyson VIP party Tuesday night). But about a month ago, he looked at the schedule and realized Detroit didn't just fit on the schedule, it was a necessity for his chances of collecting some of those huge FedEx Cup dollars. He finished fifth in the FedEx Cup last year for $2.75 million. First place at the Tour Championship paid $18 million.
This will be the third straight week he's played — three in a row being what he calls his "sweet spot."
"It worked out that I needed to play here more than I thought," Thomas said. "Everything happens for a reason."
