It’s been more than 150 days since Justin Thomas played competitively on a golf course. His herniated disc surgery is all healed, and he is set to return at the 2026 Arnold Palmer Invitational, but it won’t be without challenges.

“A course, really, like any, is the adjustment. But I would say it’ll just be a lot of little stuff,” Thomas told the media. “I’ve been able to practice pretty normally for at least a month, I feel like, or maybe not quite that much, so I’m trying to play a lot more. But I’ll still run into situations I haven’t been in in a while. It was my first time playing, hitting it in a fairway bunker, and I haven’t hit a fairway bunker shot in like four months or something. Just trying to play and get out there as often as I can.”

Throughout the 2025 season, Thomas battled what he initially thought to be a nagging issue with his right hip. He first noticed the discomfort in the weeks leading up to the Masters, but he broke a three-year winless drought at the RBC Heritage in April 2025. His victory and eight top-10 finishes allowed him to take a break and not compete in the fall. But the physical toll was mounting.

After the 2025 Ryder Cup in September, the symptoms worsened, which led to an MRI that revealed a herniated disc in his lower spine. After a surgery in November 2025, Thomas was placed under strict “BLT” restrictions (no bending, lifting, or twisting). So, he had to miss the start of the 2026 season to heal.

Thomas shared updates during this period, emphasizing the patience and advice he got from Jim Furyk.

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“No one has ever come back from an injury too late,” Furyk told him.

By January 2026, he began building back strength in the gym and hitting short irons, eventually receiving official clearance for all golf activity in February. Now, as Thomas prepares for his return, he understands that nearly five months have passed since he last felt the pressure of competitive golf. And he is not entering Bay Hill with the immediate expectation of a victory. Instead, he views next week as a vital step to regain his form.

This measured approach also comes from his mixed results at Bay Hill. Thomas finished T36 with a 3-over-par total last season here, and his best recent result at the event was a T12 finish in 2024. The only comfort Thomas finds in his return is that Bay Hill Club & Lodge is designed to test the entire field, not just those coming off surgery.

“But at least everybody else will be struggling with me at Bay Hill, so that’ll make me feel a little bit better, hopefully,” Thomas noted.

Bay Hill is one of the toughest stops on the PGA Tour. In 2025, Russell Henley won the event with just a score of 11-under par, narrowly beating Collin Morikawa. And several others, like Viktor Hovland, Max Homa, Sahith Theegala, and Min Woo Lee, missed the cuts. The 2026 field remains equally deep.

But it is not just Thomas’s return to the API field in 2026 that’s catching all the attention. Jordan Spieth is also back in the field after a tumultuous year involving eligibility fights.

Will Justin Thomas’s return be outshined by Jordan Spieth’s exemption drama?

In 2025, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler finished beyond the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings and needed help to enter the tournament. They both wrote formal letters to the API committee asking for a chance to play, but they were famously denied sponsor exemptions into the API field.

The reactions to that snub were starkly different from Fowler and Spieth. Rickie Fowler took a humble stance, simply saying, “Play better… play well, and that’ll take care of it.” Spieth, however, offered a frosty response.

“I’m bummed not to be there next week. It’s been a great, great place for me, and I really wish I was getting that start, but I needed to play better injured golf last year, I guess,” Spieth said.

Fast forward to 2026, and the situation has shifted. Rickie Fowler earned his way back on merit. He finished the 2025 season ranked 48th in the FedExCup after a T6 finish at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, securing his spot in all 2026 Signature Events. Jordan Spieth, however, remains in the same precarious position. After finishing 61st in the 2025 FedEx Cup standings, he once again missed the eligibility criteria.

But what nobody saw coming was that, despite the previous friction, the 2026 tournament committee chose to grant Spieth a sponsor exemption alongside Chris Kirk, Billy Horschel, and amateur star Daniel Bennett.