Justin Thomas is recovering from back surgery for a herniated disk, which he said Friday will forced him to miss the start of next season with no rush to return until he is fully ready.
“It's a bummer, but I don't want to have this stuff bother me the rest of my life,” Thomas said from New York, where he had the surgery on his lower back Thursday.
Doctors told him the surgery went as planned and he would start minor rehabilitation work in about three weeks. He said he could be playing golf in two months, but this is a recovery he's going to take slowly to make sure he doesn't return too soon.
Thomas won the RBC Heritage in April to end a three-year drought and returned to the elite in golf at No. 8 in the world and fourth straight Ryder Cup appearance.
He said the tests that showed a herniated disk in his lower spine surprised him because he didn't feel any pain in his back. He thought there was a nagging issue with his right hip he first noticed in the weeks leading to the Masters.
“It was really weird. I never felt anything in my back,” Thomas said. “I felt fatigued all year. I tried so many different things. Some stuff made it feel better, but nothing that made it go away. I had a good break after the Ryder Cup, and when I came back the symptoms got way worse."
Thomas was scheduled to play in the revived Skins Game in two weeks, the Hero World Challenge the following week and the PNC Championship with his father. He would have started next week at The American Express in the California desert.
Thomas said his immediate instructions are to avoid what he called “BLT” — no bending, lifting or twisting. He said he would miss at least a couple of events to start 2026, but did not want to set a goal for any tournament to avoid any temptation to rush back.
He said he would channel the words of Jim Furyk who once told him, “No one has ever come back from an injury too late.”
Thomas called the option of a cortisone injection to give it time to heal a temporary fix.
“I talked to a bunch of different doctors, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was have surgery," he said. “They said an injection is something a normal working person could do. With what I do, I would have needed to have done it the first three months of feeling symptoms."
The diagnosis at least explained some of the issues he felt on the golf course from his right side, especially when the pain started going down toward his hamstrings.
“I never had to think about setup was much as I have this year,” Thomas said. “My back got very arched, and the very left side was dominant. The more weight I put over there, the less stress on my right side. So that gave me a little bit of clarity. I've never had to be conscious standing over a damn golf ball.”
This will be the second time Thomas has missed time with an injury. He was out for nearly two months in 2019, missing the PGA Championship, waiting for a wrist injury to heal.
Thomas, 32, has won 16 times on the PGA Tour, including two PGA Championship titles.
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FILE - United States' Justin Thomas watches his tee shot on the 12th hole at Bethpage Black golf course during the Ryder Cup golf tournament, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in Farmingdale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An explosion outside a local police station in the western Mexican state of Michoacan Saturday killed at least two people and wounded seven, local and federal security officials said.
The explosion came as the federal government has stepped up security activities in the state, sending in additional troops after two recent high-profile assassinations.
Hector Zepeda, commander of the Coahuayana community police, said Saturday the blast killed two of his police officers and that civilians were among the wounded. He said remains of some of the victims were found scattered in the area of the explosion, which also damaged nearby buildings.
“With this operation (from the federal government) a lot of marines came,” Zepeda said. “We stopped doing patrols because the operation is going on.”
The community police, which patrol various rural communities, are a remnant of the civilian vigilante forces that took up arms more than a decade ago to defend communities from drug cartels, and then were formalized by the state.
Coahuayana is near the Pacific coast in western Michoacan and the border with the state of Colima, a stronghold of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Saturday’s explosion happened while Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla was in Mexico City to celebrate with President Claudia Sheinbaum the anniversary of their Morena party’s arrival in power seven years ago.
Ramírez Bedolla and Sheinbaum have been criticized for the deteriorating security situation in Michoacan where numerous drug cartels are fighting to control territory, terrorizing locals.
At least three of the six drug cartels that the Trump administration designated as terrorist organizations — Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and The New Michoacan Family — operate here, in addition to a slew of homegrown armed splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa Cartel.
Explosives dropped from drones, buried as mines or planted alongside roadways are increasingly employed by criminal groups operating in the state. Last year, some 3,000 explosive devices were seized in the state compared to 160 in 2022. So far this year, there have been more than 2,000, according to the state security agency.
Michoacan is a key importer of chemical precursors for synthetic drugs. In the last two months, 17 drug laboratories were dismantled by Mexican authorities there. The state also produces avocados exported to the U.S. and is a major producer of limes, sectors extorted by cartels for years.
The state government said Saturday in a statement that an “explosive device” was responsible, but did not provide details. Images circulating online showed a completely burned out vehicle.
Last month, Sheinbaum sent 2,000 troops — on top of the 4,300 permanent ones and 4,000 in neighboring states – to Michoacan following the killings of an outspoken representative of the lime growers and a popular mayor standing up to the cartels.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters during a celebration marking the seven years of the Fourth Transformation movement, or 4T, initiated by former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in the Zócalo of Mexico City, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
FILE - Michoacán State Governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla, left, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum attend a presentation of the new security strategy against violence for the state of Michoacan, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Nov. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Claudia Rosel, File)
