By Ryan Herrington
As Justin Thomas attempts to make up a four-shot deficit on co-leaders Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele in the final round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open, he’ll do so with mixed emotions. Golf Channel reported during the early part of its Sunday broadcast that Thomas’ paternal grandfather, Paul Thomas, has died at 89. The PGA Tour from its Twitter handle also reported the sad news, stating that Paul passed away on Saturday.

Paul Thomas left school at age 17 to become a golf professional after caddying in his youth in Cincinnati. He tried to play on the PGA Tour in the mid-1950s but didn’t have much success so he moved back to Cincinnati to work as a club professional. He would take over the head professional post at Zanesville Country Club, about 50 miles east of Columbus, in 1963 and would work there for 26 years.

Paul, who twice played in the PGA Championship (1960 and 1961) and also competed in the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont, would pass his love of the game down to his son, Mike Thomas, Justin’s father, who also became a club professional in Kentucky. That passion then reached Justin as well.

Golf Digest’s Dave Shedloski spoke with Paul, who went by the nickname PT, after Justin’s PGA Championship victory in 2017, offering recollections of his grandson from his junior days. PT fondly remembered a young Justin playing the short course at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla. “The holes were no more than 50-90 yards, and he would just go around and around trying to make a hole-in-one,” he said. “He was all about making a hole-in-one. He’d hit the tee shot, and if it didn’t go in, he’d pick up and go the next hole. But I think he aced every hole at some point.”

Paul Thomas passed his passion for golf down to his son, Mike, and his grandson, 13-time PGA Tour winner Justin.

PT stayed out of the way of Mike serving as Justin’s instructor as he developed into a PGA Tour star, but he did offer his own wisdom from time to time.

“I just talked to him about the game, about the old timers who played, how they did things,” PT said. “The one thing I tried to instill in him was confidence, telling him he could be a good player. I’d tell him, ‘The only guy who can screw this up is you.’ I think we know now that he’s done all right.”

Thomas started the day at TPC Scottsdale at 14 under in a tie for fifth. He fell eight places to a share of 13th with a 72 to finish six strokes adrift of champion Brooks Koepka.

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By Jordan Fuller
When Justin Thomas hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy for winning the 2017 PGA Championship into the humid North Carolina air, his father, Mike, and grandfather, Paul, stood alongside marvelling at the accomplishment. Over the past few decades, both Mike and Paul had dreamed of a moment that Justin was enjoying because golf was the lifeline of the Thomas family.

But why was Justin the best of the three Thomas golfers? All three had varying degrees of success in their golfing careers, but Mike and Paul couldn’t even touch the level of professional accolades that Justin had obtained with his major victory.

Did he have more talent than his father and grandfather? It was apparent to see that the three men all shared something that made them great at golf but was that genetic? Or something more?

Does genealogy make the athlete or do they just set the stage?

How the Thomas Family created Justin
The Thomas family love of golf began in the late 1940s when Paul discovered golf in his teens. Working at clubs as an assistant professional, Paul became a highly accomplished golfer after moving back to Cincinnati. He played in a U.S. Open and two PGA Championships in the 1960s alongside golfing legends Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.

As Paul became older, his golfing skills maintained their high level. He played occasionally on the senior tour and even placed in the top 15 in the 1983 U.S. Senior Open. Paul, now 86 years old, has shot his age every year since he turned 64, a staggering accomplishment.

When Mike Thomas was born, Paul wasn’t easy on his son when it came to golf. “My dad will be the first to tell you that he was pretty hard on me,” Mike told pgatour.com. “He had fun, but when it came to competition he was hard on himself. He was hard on himself, so he was hard on me.”

Mike’s amateur career wasn’t as spectacular as Paul’s or, later on, Justin’s but he competed in the U.S. Amateur Open and became the head pro at Harmony Landing in 1990. It was there, where Justin, born three years later, began his golfing journey.

Justin became a mainstay at his father’s golf course, learning to say “bag of balls” at the age of two. Mike didn’t have to give Justin a passion for the game. At Harmony Landing, everyone stayed out of Justin’s way as he spent hours hitting thousands of golf balls on the range and playing hundreds of rounds each year on the course.

Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR
Justin Thomas with family members (L-R) grandfather Paul, grandmother Phyllis, mother Jani and father Mike following his victory at the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio.

As Justin grew, Paul engaged his grandson’s mind with old golfing tales while Mike harnessed and channelled his son’s immense talent. “Mike gave (Justin) a … love of playing. He didn’t make him a lover of golf swings,” Jay Seawell, the head coach at Alabama told pgatour.com. “Mike did a great job of making Justin love Nos. 1-18. He was always on the golf course, playing with his dad. I think the more you play, the more you value the score.”

The foundation of Justin’s talent was the result of Paul’s raw skill and Mike’s patience and direction. So was talent given to Justin at birth through the genetic makeup of his father and grandfather? To find the answer, we need to dive a little deeper into the relationship between genes and fostering talent.

What about the genealogy of the Thomas family on Justin’s success?
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, “Studies focused on similarities and differences in athletic performance within families, including between twins, suggest that genetic factors underlie 30 to 80 percent of the differences among individuals in traits related to athletic performance.”

The 30-to-80 percent theory certainly offers a wide range of influence on passing genetic talent to descending family members. Using the example of the Thomas family, it was widely known that Paul, the oldest of the three golfers, had a large amount of success throughout his golfing life. The same could not be said for Mike, Paul’s son, but that doesn’t mean that Mike was a poor golfer. His path just moved in another direction than his father’s and his successes were far more muted.

When wondering if genealogy matters in golf, the answer is yes but with a few caveats. Justin is certainly the most successful golfer of the three Thomas family members thus far. With his father Mike running a golf club, Justin had unlimited access to golf facilities. He could play round after round and hit range ball after range ball without worrying about paying for anything he used.

The time that Thomas spent honing his skills, especially early in his childhood when most kids are just enjoying being a kid, allowed him to build a skill set that carried him through his teenage years and onto the PGA Tour. Because money in the Thomas family was not a huge priority, the youngest Thomas could get his hands on the best equipment.

So it is easy to believe that Paul and Mike set the stage of Justin’s success through their genetic hand-me-downs, but for Justin to reach the world’s highest golfing stage, you would also need to acknowledge that the privileges in his life allowed Justin to take solely focus on reaching his potential.

Raising the Trophy
Justin Thomas has flourished since his 2017 PGA title victory. He’s won three times on the PGA Tour in the last 12 months, finished top six at the 2018 PGA Championship and qualified for the 2018 Ryder Cup team.

At the Ryder Cup, Thomas teamed with Jordan Spieth and helped win four out of five matches against Team Europe, including a singles match victory over Rory McIlroy.

His genealogy coupled with the privileges of his childhood allowed him to work incredibly hard and achieved his dream of becoming a professional golfer.

“After (Justin) showed that he was going to make it, I told him, ‘Only you can screw this thing up. It’s up to you to make something out of yourself,’” His grandfather Paul said. “And he sure did.” –  Jordan Fuller is Editor-in-Chief of Golf Influence

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“It’s like a dream,” said Paul Thomas, Justin’s grandfather, who with his wife Phyllis watched every shot on television from their living room couch. Not that that was different from just about any other day of the week.

Paul Thomas holds up a full-page ad of his grandson that appeared in USA Today.

“It’s pretty much all golf all the time around here,” Phyllis said. “The cable company makes you buy 150 channels to get golf. We’d be happy if we just had Golf Channel and nothing else.”

For some insight into the making of Justin Thomas and his quick rise to the upper echelons of golf – not quite as fast as good buddy Jordan Spieth, but fast nevertheless – one need only get to know the man who blazed the trail.

Paul Thomas, or PT to just about everyone he knows, left school at age 17 to become a golf professional. His interest in the game began, like many others in a long-ago era, as a caddie at Avon Fields Golf Course in Cincinnati. A native of Ashland, Ky., Thomas needed a job and simply up and decided he was a golf pro, and he peddled his services to courses in the Cincinnati area, starting at Sharon Woods, where he cleaned clubs, gave lessons, “anything that was needed.”

Paul Thomas watches Arnold Palmer putt during the 1983 Citizens Union Senior Golf Classic on the PGA Tour Champions at Griffin Gate Golf Course in Lexington, Ky. After a third-round 69, Thomas began the final round one stroke behind Palmer. Photo courtesy Paul and Phyllis Thomas

He bounced around to other jobs, from York (Pa.) Country Club to Tequesta (Fla.) Country Club. While at the former, he met Phyllis, who didn’t play golf and wasn’t that impressed at first blush. “I had no idea what a golf pro was,” she said.

Paul and Phyllis Thomas have been married for 62 years.

He tried the tour in 1957 without much success and then moved back to Cincinnati to become an assistant at Western Hills Country Club. After taking time to refine his game, Thomas qualified for the 1960 and ’61 PGA Championships at, respectively, Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio, and Olympia Fields near Chicago. A second-round 72 that included an inward 33 on Firestone, tied with Doug Sanders for the low of the day, enabled him to make the cut. “I was a player today,” he told the press at the time. Thomas also competed in the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont after finishing fourth in sectional qualifying in Cincinnati.

His dream was to win one of those two majors. He never came close but competing in them yielded its own measure of satisfaction.

“That meant you were kind of a big deal, just making the field,” he said.

Stuart Franklin

Three of his four sons, including Mike, Justin’s father, were born by the time he landed his first head professional post in 1963 at Zanesville Country Club, about 50 miles east of Columbus. He stayed for 26 years. Of the four boys, Mike displayed the most aptitude, and interest. At 10 years old he offered to caddie for his mom in the club championship after she had taken up the game. She nervously topped a few shots, moving the ball no more than 100 yards in four strokes. Mike put down the bag and walked in. Paul confronted him.

Related: 15 things you need to know about Justin Thomas

“He said, ‘If she can’t do better than that, then I quit,’” Paul remembered. “Mike got to be a really good player. He shot 65 at Zanesville as a young kid. He’d clear a place in the snow to hit balls in winter. He had certain expectations, and Justin was no different.”

But Justin took that to another level while growing up at Harmony Landing Country Club, near Louisville. “You could see the desire in him when he was 7 or 8, and he just got better every year,” Paul said. “It wasn’t long after that his dad and I just looked at each other and said, ‘He’s the real deal.’”

Paul’s favorite memory of a young Justin was watching him play the short course at PGA National in Port St. Lucie, Fla. “The holes were no more than 50-90 yards, and he would just go around and around trying to make a hole-in-one,” PT said. “He was all about making a hole-in-one. He’d hit the tee shot, and if it didn’t go in, he’d pick up and go the next hole. But I think he aced every hole at some point.”

A PGA Master Professional, Mike has been Justin’s only teacher. Paul, a renowned instructor at Zanesville and at his last job at Peek’n Peak Resort in New York before he retired, stayed out of it.

“I just talked to him about the game, about the old timers who played, how they did things,” Thomas said. “The one thing I tried to instill in him was confidence, telling him he could be a good player. I’d tell him, ‘The only guy who can screw this up is you.’ I think we know now that he’s done all right.”

Paul’s other contribution was fashion. “He learned a lot about dressing up from me,” he said with an air of satisfaction. “I was always wearing the best I could get on me, and the same with his dad. He was a little kid, and he’d never wear shorts because he said pros don’t wear shorts.”

Now that Justin has broken through, Paul said the floodgates could open for more major titles. Which would mean even more people wanting to talk to him about his grandson. At age 85, he still plays golf four times a week at Foxfire Golf Club south of the city. Phyllis, 81, also will play the occasional nine holes.

All golf all the time in the Thomas household.

“Oh, my gosh, all year long the whole conversation with the guys has been, ‘What’s Justin shooting today?’ He’s a big shot around here,” Paul said with a chuckle. “The 59 [in January at the Sony Open], making an eagle to shoot 63 in the U.S. Open, that’s some amazing stuff. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Oh, my gosh, all year long the whole conversation with the guys has been, ‘What’s Justin shooting today?’ He’s a big shot around here,” Paul said with a chuckle. “The 59 [in January at the Sony Open], making an eagle to shoot 63 in the U.S. Open, that’s some amazing stuff. We have a lot to talk about.”

PT can still score, too. He has shot his age or better every year since he turned 64. “Of course, now it gets easier, so it’s not as much fun,” he said. “Most of the time, if I can shoot something around 75, I’m usually tickled.”

Thomas said he looks forward to the day he can get together with his grandson and hold the Wanamaker Trophy, the prize he never got close to himself. He and Phyllis saw online that Justin was showing off his PGA hardware with Tiger Woods. They shook their heads in wonder. No. 6 in the world rankings and with four wins this season, Justin is a big shot everywhere.

“That PGA trophy, that’s the big one to win in our eyes,” said PT, who suspects he’ll see his grandson sometime this fall.

Would he like to have a drink out of the Wanamaker Trophy? “Nah,” he replied. “Just seeing Justin bring it in would be enough.”

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