Tiger Woods: Justin Thomas makes ‘unbelievable’ claim after epic PGA Championships

And Justin Thomas, who finished tied-sixth in Missouri, was thrilled to be involved in a major with Tiger Woods once again contending.

Woods underwent spinal fusion surgery last year in the latest procedure for a long-line of back issues.

It has been five years since the 42-year-old has stood in the winners circle and his injury problems had made it look extremely unlikely that he would return.

But the 14-time major champion has undergone an extraordinary return to form in 2018, culminating in a thrilling performance at the PGA Championship.

Despite the fact none of his 14 previous major wins had come when trailing heading into the final round, Woods catapulted up the leaderboard to finish with a 64 – his best performance on a Sunday in a major.

It still wasn’t enough with Brooks Koepka managing to block out the noise to claim his third career major title.

However, Woods’ performance got golf fans excited about the prospect of him winning again and Thomas believes golf will be the main beneficiary.

“I’ve played a bunch with Tiger but I’ve never competed in a major with him so that was something new for me,” Thomas said on the Stephen A Smith show.

“It’s unbelievable. The roars that you would hear throughout the course. The roars that you would hear just from his score getting changed on the scoreboard is… unless you truly experience it, it’s pretty unbelievable.

“I know he’s obviously happy but we’re all happy to see him healthy and back because it’s good for the game of golf.”

He added: “I truly don’t think you can put anybody in the same boat as Tiger Woods.

“You can’t put into words what he is to the game of golf. It’s unbelievable… the amount of people that go out to tournaments because he’s playing.

“The opportunity we have is the kids growing up never watched the Tiger Woods that we watched growing up so we have the opportunity to be that player, that guy the kids look up and to me that’s a huge deal.

“I want to be a great role model to kids, I want to be someone they look up to, someone they want to model their game after kind of like I did with Tiger.”