"He is someone that I see practising more than anybody else," Thomas says of Northern Irishman; watch build-up and action live on Sky Sports The Players
Tuesday 10 March 2020 20:03, UK
Justin Thomas says a win for "unbelievable" Rory McIlroy is just around the corner after seven consecutive top-five finishes worldwide.
The Northern Irishman arrives at TPC Sawgrass looking to become the first player to defend the Players Championship, and his current form will likely put him right in the mix on Sunday.
McIlroy has been left frustrated after falling short in his last seven tournaments, but Thomas believes his form is encouraging, and that a trophy win will come soon.
"I think you definitely have to look at it as a positive," Thomas said at Tuesday's press conference. "When you're as talented as Rory is, you keep putting yourself there, it's going to happen eventually, and he has the capability to do what he's done a couple of times where he might win four events in six weeks, or win a couple in a row.
"I know he knows that, I know we all know that, and he's playing some unbelievable golf.
"It's cool because I respect Rory as much as I like him. I just respect what he does because he works really hard. He takes it extremely seriously.
"I mean, I would say, along with myself, he is someone that I see practising more than anybody else. We put a lot of work in.
"I think he had some times there where he was expecting more of himself and he wasn't sure what he had to do, and he just kind of had to dig it out of the dirt and kind of just get back to the basics and just, not start over, but be like, 'I need to be me, I need to be Rory McIlroy and get myself back to what made me great', and he's obviously doing that, and the wins will come."
Webb Simpson says McIlroy will go down as one of the sport's greatest-ever players, and is also expecting the 30-year-old to be in contention this week.
"He's certainly the best player in the world right now, and has floated in and out of the best player in the world for his whole career it seems like," Simpson said.
"His bad play and bad stretches is better than most every guy out here. And when he's playing his best, he's hard to beat.
"He's already, I think, created the opinion that he's going to go down as one of the great players ever in golf, which is great for him, great for us, great for our tour, and you know, he's one of those guys that you expect to be in contention every week.
"I think he's great for our game. I think he's very mature. I think he's liked by all of his peers, all of us. When someone respects you on and off the golf course, that's a great thing, and I think that's how we all feel about Rory."
Simpson has been working with Butch Harmon recently, and says he has been impressed with Harmon's approach to coaching.
"I worked with Butch Monday of Phoenix, and I think what makes him great is I saw him in October, the Monday of Vegas, and I worked on my path in my backswing," Simpson said.
"My path, the club was getting too far inside, and that's all we worked on is my path. I come back in late January to see him, Monday of Phoenix, and we worked on my club face. My club face was getting too open in my backswing.
"And so I asked him 'Was it open in October?', and he said yes, and I said, 'Why didn't we work on it in October?', and he said, 'Well, the backswing was a big task, and I didn't want to give you too much at once because you had to go play in a golf tournament, the Shriners'.
"That just shows his experience, I think, just knowing how much to give a player, because I think he knows that players will go think about everything.
"If he gives me three things, I'm going to think about them all. So it was just slow and steady. So then Phoenix week, it was just my club face, and the homework for me was 15 to 20 swings a day, and that's it, and then he wanted me to go play golf.
"So that's why I love going to see him is he knows his stuff but he knows that we have to go play every week, and it's hard to play golf swing on the golf course, so he's great at that."
Watch the Players Championship throughout the week live on Sky Sports' dedicated channel - Sky Sports The Players!
