“It p****s me off”: What’s annoyed Justin Thomas?

Most of us would love to be anywhere near the top ten golfers in the world.

But Justin Thomas clearly has higher standards.

The 28-year-old is eighth in the world rankings, and isn’t happy about it.

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However, with the top five all under the age of 30 for the first time in history, he believes the current standard among the best players in the world is good for the game.

And he revealed the form of those at the top of the rankings spurs him on to get back there himself, having already spent a total of five weeks as world No.1.

“To be perfectly honest, it p****s me off where I am in the world ranking,” Thomas said ahead of this week’s Valspar Championship.

“But it just goes to show the level of golf that’s being played. I clearly have not won very many golf tournaments in the last two years, year and a half, at least, from other parts of my career, but I’ve played some pretty damn good golf and it’s just, if you’re not winning tournaments you’re getting lapped right now and that’s just the way that it is.

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“And that’s a good thing for the game of golf. Having Patrick Cantlay do what he did last year pushes me to become better and having Collin Morikawa and Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland play as good as they are and be in contention in all the majors and win the biggest golf tournaments, I mean, yeah, selfishly and the jealous side of me wants that to be me.

“So it gets me working harder because your main goal is to have no names above you in the World Ranking and I definitely have more ahead of me than I would like.”