Justin Thomas’ champions’ dinner at last year’s PGA Championship was captured by Netflix’s Full Swing cameras, and the PGA Tour star could not resist a dig at a LIV Golf rival
Justin Thomas brutally took aim at LIV Golf star Mito Pereira during his champions’ dinner at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill 12 months ago.
Thomas won his second U.S. PGA title at Southern Hills two years ago, as he got his hands on the Wanamaker Trophy in dramatic circumstances. The title looked destined to fall the way of Pereira, who was stood on the tee of the 72nd hole of the week with a one-shot lead ahead of Thomas and Will Zalatoris.
The pressure proved all too much for the Chilean though, who hit his tee shot into a water hazard before going on to make a double bogey six at the worst possible time. Not only did Pereira surrender his lead, but he also missed out on a playoff with Thomas and Zalatoris.
And it was the former world No. 1 who capitalised, defeating Zalatoris after three extra holes. Thomas would not have had a chance to take part in the playoff if it was not for Pereira’s mistake, and the American could not resist bringing this up when presenting his speech at last year’s champions’ dinner.
The dinner in question contained members from both sides of golf ‘s fallout between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, and was captured by Netflix’s Full Swing cameras as part of season two of the fly-on-the-wall docu-series. “I am very excited to be hosting this,” Thomas said at Oak Hill.
“It is a very cool night, I know we can all reminisce about stories.” Raising his glass to his fellow champions, the two-time winner added: “I personally want to have a cheers to Mito Pereira because this would not happen without him.” In the room were LIV duo Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka, who both offered a smile on the back of Thomas’ joke.
Pereira himself was not in attendance, and like many others, only found out about the behind-closed-doors dig when watching the Netflix documentary. The Chilean did address Thomas’ comments in an interview with Barstool Sports, admitting he was left slightly ‘hurt’ by the joke.
““It was not very fun for me or I think for anybody,” he said in April. “I’ve seen Instagram and he’s not getting a lot of love about that. I’m not really close to him so it’s not like I’m going to go talk to him. It hurt a little bit, just not really to go at him and say something.
The Torque GC star did however admit it had given him some motivation to get one over on Thomas in the future. He added: “It gives you a little bit of fire again. I really would like to be in that position again to beat him.” Sadly for Pereira he will not get his chance this time around, having failed to qualify for the event. The former world No. 41 currently sits 218th in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), as LIV continue to operate without world ranking points..
