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I went on the No Laying Up podcast on Monday to discuss Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy and the start of the 2017 golf year. Chris Solomon, the host, asked me an interesting question about whether Thomas' career ceiling has been changed in my mind after he pulled off the Hawaii double in winning both the Tournament of Champions and Sony Open.

Thomas has now won four of his first 74 events, which equates to a 5.4 percent winning percentage. That is, well, it's outrageous historically. Up there with the likes of Dustin Johnson and Jason Day and not far behind Jordan Spieth and Phil Mickelson. And Thomas hasn't even hit the meat of his career year.

So has Thomas' ceiling -- the most he could possibly accomplish in his career -- changed for me? I guess it has a bit. But the question also begged a larger question which is, "what is the ceiling for the best young golfers in the world right now?"

That's what I want to explore today. It's important to remember that this is the absolute best possible scenario for each golf. Where each will end up if every single thing lines up in his favor. The ceiling numbers below might startle you at first (I winced as I typed some of them), but you have to remember that we are imagining the greatest possible outcome over the next 15-20 years for some of these guys.

Also, we are talking PGA Tour only here. Let's go.

1. Jason Day (age: 29) -- Day currently has 10 wins and one major championship. His might be the most intriguing case of any of these golfers because of his injury history. He said he thought he might have to retire after a thumb injury sidelined him back in 2014.

"The thumb was probably the most concerning out of everything," said Day. "I actually thought I was going to have to quit the game because of the thumb, because I literally couldn't hold the club. Obviously you have got to hold the club."

Throw in his sometimes-balky back and a host of other ailments, and I'm not sure what we're going to get for the next decade. His floor is also probably the lowest out of this list, but that doesn't necessarily affect his ceiling (which is the point of the exercise). I think Day definitely wins at least one more major, but I don't see him touching the Rory McIlroy trajectory over the next 10 years.

Ceiling: 22 PGA Tour wins | four majors | second-best Australian ever

2. Rory McIlroy (27) -- McIlroy is generationally great. He is "the one" if there is a "the one" from this current crop of superstars. His ceiling is only tied to how often he plays PGA Tour events and how long his body can hold up under the weight of that 900-MPH swing. Jack Nicklaus recently said McIlroy had to decide if he wanted to be the best of all time. I think that's maybe a little ambitious, but he's only one Masters win from becoming the greatest European of all time (I know everyone will agree with me wholeheartedly there).

Here's the thing about McIlroy -- he is doing it in an age where it's harder to win majors and tournaments than ever before. It just is. There is more money and better competition than ever before. If you disagree with that, then you disagree historically with the way capitalism works. So a career Grand Slam in this era to go along with 25 or more PGA Tour wins is probably the equivalent of something better than what Phil Mickelson has done. And Mickelson is a top-10 golfer ever.

McIlroy wins at about a 10 percent clip on Tour, but he only plays 16-18 events a year. Let's say he does that for the next 12 years. That would mean he ends up with north of 30 PGA Tour wins. He also has exactly 50 more majors to play in until he turns 40 (barring injury). His ceiling is winning probably six or seven of them (he's won four of his first 31 as a pro).

Ceiling: 35 wins | 10 majors | best European ever | top five golfer ever

3. Dustin Johnson (32) -- Johnson has 12 PGA Tour wins and a major championship. He seems to be getting better every single year, and that culminated with his three-win 2016 campaign that included the PGA Tour Player of the Year award. He's slightly older than most of the rest of this crowd which means the runway for him to land a Hall of Fame campaign is not as lengthy, but he's hurtling nicely towards that 20-win mark, which would land him a lifetime card on the PGA Tour. That is, if he doesn't hang up his spikes early for a career dabbling in making music videos for a variety of social media platforms.

Ceiling: 25 wins | five majors | Hall of Fame

4. Jordan Spieth (23) -- Ah yes, the Golden Child. He already has eight PGA Tour wins and two majors. He played well enough to win two majors, too, just not the two majors that he actually won. He should have two green jackets and Johnson should have two U.S. Opens. Anyway, Spieth said last year that he was never going to replicate his 2015 season over and over.

"When you say it's a tall task, I mean, if I play for 25 more years, that would mean 125 wins and 52 majors," said Spieth. "If I think about it that way, no, that wasn't going to happen."

Still, his early trajectory has been right at the throne Big Cat sits on in modern American golf. That will likely slow as I don't really believe Spieth has the ball-striking bona fides to roll 10 majors deep, but he's as nasty a competitor as there is in the game. I think he wins multiple U.S. Opens in his career and is easily the best hope America has to add another name to the list of golfers who have won the career Slam.

He'll play more than McIlroy does, too, which is why I'm putting his wins as high as I am.

Ceiling: 45 wins | seven majors | top 10 golfer ever

5. Justin Thomas (23) -- Thomas is a fascinating case. Especially when you look at this graphic.

The younger you are, the more difficult it is to project what you're going to do, and Thomas' act of arson in Hawaii was impressive. But his overall ceiling still feels lower than Spieth's. I worry a little bit about the violence of his swing (see: Woods, Tiger), but he's going to win a ton in his 20s. And his ceiling is much higher than the next two guys on our list.

Ceiling: 25 wins | four majors

6. Rickie Fowler (28) -- Is Fowler the Andy Roddick of this golf generation? He might be, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way, either. Roddick was immense. He was just born at the wrong time and played the wrong sport. If he's born five years earlier or 12 years later, he probably has a couple of Wimbledons and another Grand Slam in there somewhere.

Fowler has three PGA Tour wins, but no major championships. His closest call came at the 2014 PGA Championship when McIlroy bullied his way to the podium. His Players Championship was spectacular, but an up-and-down 2016 when he should have really been settling into the prime of his career leaves questions. This year will go a long way in answering what kind of legacy Fowler will leave.

Ceiling: 15 wins | three majors | best Oklahoma State golfer ever

7. Patrick Reed (26) -- Reed has five wins but no top 10s in major championships. He is a really good (but not historically great) player. I could see him having a Hal Sutton-like career.

Ceiling: 15 wins | two majors | best Ryder Cup player always and forever