Justin Thomas, one-hit wonder no more

For a sport obsessed with its own history, golf can get fixated on the future in a hurry.

No sooner does a player win a major than golf analysts and fans start speculating about their next one. And if that “next one” takes awhile to come – or never comes at all – the whispers turn to murmurs, the murmurs to judgments.

The majors are golf’s unassailable tiers of validation. It doesn’t matter how many weekly tour events Rickie Fowler or Lee Westwood or Colin Montgomerie win; if they don’t have majors, they’re not in the game’s inner circle. It's a bright, shining dividing line.

Climb a level up from there, and you’re in single-major territory. The PGA Championship has a bit of a reputation for…