J.T.2.0 - JUSTIN THOMAS

A FUNNY THING HAPPENS ON THE WAY TO TURNING 30. YOU START THINKING NEXT-LEVEL STUFF, LIKE MARRIAGE AND INVESTMENTS AND NEW CAREER FRONTIERS. ALL OF THAT IS TRUE IN THE CASE OF THE DEFENDING PGA CHAMP. BUT ANOTHER THING IS AT WORK: THE GUY'S RELENTLESS DRIVE TO BE MORE THAN MERELY GREAT.

- SEAN ZAK

Our conversation makes that ultra clear. He has used that word—want—27 times in the past 26 minutes. He wants more majors and more wins and more putts to drop. The usual stuff. But he also wants some comfort food.

“I mean, it sucks,” he says. “I want a pizza so f---ing bad, you have no idea.” Somehow, these wants are related.

Thomas can’t eat pizza because he recently committed to living gluten-free for a year and dairy-free for six months. No lavish pastas, no gooey burritos, no cereal for breakfast and definitely no pizza. Instead, it’s been fruits, veggies, meat, fish and a daily concoction dreamed up by Golf Channel wellness guru Ara Suppiah. All of it is meant to heal the leaky gut that, at times, sapped JT’s energy in 2022, the year in which he won his second major and his second PGA Championship.

Scanning the ingredients on the back of every wrapper is a drag, but Thomas is two months into this dietary voyage. “I don’t care how extreme or weird it is,” he says. “I would love to not have to do it, but I have to give it a try to know.”

If it helps the gut, it helps the body. If it helps the body, it’ll help the golf. And everything is about helping his golf.

As for that golf, the past hour alone has been a whirl. Thomas holed out on 18 to finish the Valspar Championship in Tarpon Springs, Fla., with a final round 70 and a three-under total for the week. It ended with a faintly tugged 7-iron, a three- putt from 46 feet and a Titleist hat absolutely ripped off his head in frustration. Forty minutes later, after a quick encounter with me and a parking-lot debrief with his caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, JT reaches out by phone from his car, en route to a Tampa airport, where he’ll catch a flight home.