What happened to Justin Thomas at the Sentry Tournament of Champions 2021?

US golfer Justin Thomas is riding the high tide with the news of his participation in the coveted 'The Match' in December with Jordan Spieth as his partner. He has firmly found his footing as one of the best golfers in the current circuit with two major championships under his belt. He is also the reigning PGA champion and has won the PGA Championship once before in 2017.

But sometimes even the best of the best stumble. The Sentry Tournament of Champions 2021 was one such incident for the golfer. Justin Thomas was playing in the third round of the tournament when he faced a four-foot putt for par on the fourth hole. Unfortunately, he missed it to the right.

He then walked past the hole. Just before tapping in for a bogey, he was heard on Golf Channel's live broadcast uttering a homophobic slur.

It seemed like he soon came to regret his actions as he talked about it to Todd Lewis live on the Golf Channel.

"There’s just no excuse. I’m an adult, I’m a grown man. There’s absolutely no reason for me to say anything like that. It’s terrible. I’m extremely embarrassed. It’s not who I am. It’s not the kind of person that I am. But it’s … unfortunate I did it and I have to own up to it and I’m very apologetic."

He called the mistake a learning experience and apologized to anyone who was offended by the epithet.

"Like I said, it’s inexcusable. I’m speechless. … it’s bad. There’s no other way to put it. I need to do better. I need to be better. It’s definitely a learning experience. I deeply apologize to anyone and everybody who I offended and I’ll be better because of it."

The mistake cost him some huge sponsors and thankfully led to a lot of soul-searching and introspection.

---

"I was a little bit of almost like a hypocrite" - Justin Thomas

Justin Thomas at The CJ Cup - Round Three (Image via Getty)

Justin Thomas revisited his mistake at the Sentry Tournament of Champions 2021 a year later during an episode of the podcast, No Laying Up.

He talked about what he has learned since and how much he has changed in the year that followed. He said that he had a lot of "awkward and uncomfortable" conversations and did a lot of introspection.

"I like to think I've grown a lot as a person and had a lot of awkward and uncomfortable conversations and more so opened up my eyes and honestly made me realize some things about myself."

Thomas also spoke of how he realized his hypocrisy when it came to reacting to a public figure's missteps.

"I was a little bit of almost like a hypocrite, if you will, because I’d see people make these mistakes and I think it’s so easy nowadays for people to attack the person or think, ‘He’s an idiot, what is he doing? He’s got no idea what’s going on.'"

Justin Thomas further added how when he found himself in a similar situation, he expected people to not treat him cruelly.

"But then I flip it around and that happened to me, or I should say I made that mistake, and then I’m expecting people to not do the same thing to me."

Thomas said that initially it was difficult to see a positive in that situation.

"It was extremely difficult to figure out for a couple of months what kind of positive could come of this. I developed a lot of great relationships because of it. I got even tighter relationships with a lot of my partners, with a lot of my friends…"

He said that although the situation was extremely difficult compared to a failure in golf, it was still a failure in his life. So, he tried it similarly and tried to learn from it.

"It was insanely different than a failure in golf or a sport, but it is still a failure in my life. Just as I treat my failures in golf, I try to learn from it."

Even though it took Justin Thomas time to process what had happened, once he had, he sat down with his team and friends to talk about how he could improve on his mistakes.

"Although it took me a while because of the state of mind I was in, once I was able to sit down with my team and friends around me, 'All right, let’s try to take this time to learn and get better from it.' Once you’ve already made the mistake that’s all you can do and I feel like I did."

The year in general was not the best for Thomas, as soon after the Sentry Tournament of Champions 2021 incident, his grandfather passed away. That same year, his good friend Tiger Woods was in a near-fatal, horrific car crash.

Justin Thomas spoke about that as well.

"It was all this stuff that was kind of going on and it was like, ‘This is going to be the worst year of my life.'"

But the important takeaway from Justin Thomas's mistake is how much one is willing to accept their wrongs, try to learn from them, and strive to do better.