PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The crowd assembled around the famous 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass stood in unison. Justin Thomas had just hit it to 18 feet on the island green — a satisfactory result — but it was what Thomas had crafted in the previous 16 holes that had fans all clamoring his name.
After starting his second round at 6 over, tied for 134th place and 12 shots behind the leader, Thomas had turned TPC Sawgrass into his playground, pouring in 10 birdies over 16 holes and shooting up the leaderboard of the Players Championship. The putt on 17 had just enough speed to trickle in and give Thomas his 11th birdie of the day, a tournament record. His lone bogey on 18 did not detract from the round of the day — a 62 that tied the course record shot by Tom Hoge in 2023 and gave Thomas a whopping 16-shot difference between Thursday and Friday.
“That was one of the best rounds I’ve played,” he said. “I felt like I did an unbelievable job of keeping my eyes forward, keeping my blinders on, not looking backwards, forwards, anything like that. It was just: How can I put this ball in the fairway off the tee? And then how can I make birdie, and let’s rinse and repeat.”
In some ways, the mindset that fueled Thomas’s dream round was the same that kept it from being even better.
As Thomas made his way to the 18th tee and the late-afternoon light colored the course in an orange hue, the crowd grew around him, excited at the possibility of witnessing history. Thomas said he wasn’t fully aware that he could set the course record. The only thing on his mind, he said, was making another birdie. But after pushing his fairway wood off the tee into the right rough, the two-time major champion was left with a tricky shot.
“Once I missed the fairway, birdie was kind of out of the question and then I was trying to hit something short of the green there,” Thomas said. “The rough grabbed the face enough to have it shoot out straight left, and with the momentum of that ball, it’s obviously going in the water.”
From behind the 18th green, Thomas’s dad and coach, Mike, stood and watched as his son took a penalty drop 54 yards from the hole. He had to hole it to make par and break the course record, but an up-and-down was still essential to tie it. After a full day of hitting fairways and greens, Thomas was grinding. He proceeded to hit a high, arching pitch shot that landed like a feather and stopped, 22 inches from the hole.
Mike clapped as loud as the rest of the fans on hand, and once Thomas tapped in for bogey and a 62, he turned to the rest of the Thomas family.
“That’s pretty special right there,” he said.
As Thomas explained after his round, Thursday’s 78 was “absolutely terrible in every way, shape, or form” but after spending time talking about it with multiple people Thursday night, including his wife Jill, it allowed him to believe that it was, as he put it, “a fluke.”
“I was way more frustrated and upset with how I was mentally,” Thomas said. “Jill just listened for a long time last night. She was great. Just keeping me positive and keeping me looking forward and reminding me, ‘I’m playing a lot of good golf,’ but just the hardest part was just getting in that mindset once we started today.”
Once Thomas was in that mindset, he took off. He made birdies on the first two holes, then added three more before making the turn. Then, from holes 11-14, Thomas turned incandescent, making four straight birdies and turning his round from a special one into a historic one. By the end, Thomas had made 114 feet of putts and gained 3.6 strokes on his approach game alone.
He credited it all to his ability to stay present.
“It’s one of the hardest things to do. I think it’s arguably [Scottie Scheffler’s] best attribute is how well he’s able to stay present and stay in the moment,” Thomas said. “It’s just as much of a skill as being able to hit a wedge a certain distance or control your distance. I hadn’t done it that well in a round in a really long time, so I’m probably more proud of that than I am of the score today.”
Thomas now has a shot at contending over the weekend. He’s tied for 29th place and only seven shots behind leaders Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia. More importantly, as winds with gusts of up to 30 mph set to begin blowing through here late Saturday afternoon and through Sunday, Thomas is already relishing the opportunity to play the kind of golf he excels at.
“I love playing in those conditions. I just think you’ve got to be creative, and it’s just tough,” Thomas said. “Obviously I’m thrilled and I’ll take as much of this as I possibly can, but yeah, once I tee up tomorrow, the Coach [Nick] Saban effect, 24-hours, enjoy it, and I’ve got a tee time tomorrow. That’s all I care about, and I’m just going to try to get back after it.”
Source: espn.com