How Tiger Woods put Justin Thomas ‘in his place’ at East Lake

ATLANTA – It felt like a full-circle moment for Justin Thomas Tuesday at the Tour Championship.

In 2017, Thomas won the FedExCup but finished second to Xander Schauffele at the Tour Championship, an anomaly that – at least in part – prompted the PGA Tour to introduce a starting-strokes format at the finale.

As part of an overhaul of the Tour Championship this year the Tour ended starting strokes, which gave the post-season points leaders incremental leads heading into the finale and combined the individual title and the season-long race into one competition.

It was telling that when asked his favorite memory from East Lake, Thomas didn’t pick winning the season-long title in 2017. Instead, it was a predictable exchange with Tiger Woods in 2020, the year after Woods had won the Tour Cham