Thomas Sides With Furyk, Confirms Pairings Were Known

The latest turn in the seemingly never-ending drama that played out over a week ago in Paris, Justin Thomas, who is competing in this week’s CIMB Classic, spoke his piece as one of the awkward third wheels in the Jordan Spieth-Patrick Reed pairings break up. 

In case you’ve been living under a golf-restricted rock for the last two weeks, the United States got stomped by Europe 17½ – 10½, which triggered second-guessing of most of U.S. captain Jim Furyk’s decisions, but especially the choice to split up the successful duo of Reed and Spieth. 


The post-tournament press conference broached the topic, and Reed took it to another level through the media. In the aftermath, Furyk has come out to say his piece and now Thomas has backed up his captain.

Speaking prior to this week’s event, the World No. 4 backed up Furyk’s assertion that the pairings of he and Spieth and Reed and Tiger Woods were decided upon well in advance of the matches. 

“That was something obviously that had been talked about in advance,” Thomas said. “All I was worried about was I knew that I was going to play with Jordan and we were worrying about taking care of our point and taking care of our match.

“It’s a team event, and it’s a team week, and we’re all worried about each other, but that’s kind of our thing, is we do our job. Jordan and I’s job was to go out and get a point, and that’s what we were fortunate enough to at least get three out of four.”

Thomas and Spieth went 3-1 as a team while Reed and Woods went 0-2 in their two team matches. 

Amazingly, there still haven’t been follow-up questions from the broader media or reactions from Spieth, Woods or even Reed, who set off the firestorm late Sunday evening, so it would appear this story is still, somehow, in its relative infancy.