CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Justin Thomas yearned to win a major, any major. Competitors can’t be choosers. But the P.G.A. Championship, the major that celebrates largely unheralded club professionals like Thomas’s father and grandfather, had added luster in his eyes.

Thomas might have followed his forebears into the teaching side of the game if not for the serendipitous arrival of the P.G.A. Championship to his hometown, Louisville, Ky., in 2000. An impressionable 7-year-old, Thomas was introduced to the chill-inducing cheers of golf at its highest level and the jaw-dropping peak excellence of Tiger Woods, who won the tournament with a game and an aura that captivated Thomas.

“Being at the P.G.A. that week, and just hearing the roars, and just hearing everything, and what Tiger was producing out there,” Thomas said. “I mean, him and that week was the reason that I was like, ‘O.K., this is really what I want to do.’”

Thomas was speaking Sunday night at a podium at Quail Hollow, as he stole glances at the shiny Wanamaker Trophy on the table in front of him. It hurt to watch his good friend Jordan Spieth win the Masters, then the United States Open and then the British Open, and not break through himself. Thomas’s best finish in a major was a tie for ninth at this year’s United States Open, until Sunday.