JT bounces back from cold opener at Bay Hill

Thomas' 68 bests Fleetwood and Scheffler and puts himself in contention at Players

Justin Thomas was sharper than Scottie Scheffler on Thursday at Players (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Last week’s season debut was no fun for Justin Thomas. He was willing to take his time getting his game back after missing months recovering from microdisectomy back surgery, and certainly didn’t expect to be terribly sharp after so much time away.

Thomas was willing to cut himself a little slack. He went nearly six months without a competitive round and was taking things slow after November back surgery to relieve a herniated disk.

But a pair of 79s? Shotting 14-over par in 36 holes? Missing the cut by 12 strokes? Finishing dead last at the Arnold Palmer Invitational?

Yikes! The performance left him “sad and upset.”

“Look, I wasn’t expecting to go be in contention and have a chance to win the golf tournament,” he said. “I fully believed that I could. Like I was hitting all these shots and doing things well enough to, but I knew it was going to be tough mentally being out there and playing.

“But when you kind of post two pretty humiliating scores, it’s hard to give yourself too much grace.

“There’s no scenario where I’m okay and think that it’s fine to shoot that poorly and put those kind of scores up. But, yeah, I really just needed a little bit of time to decompress and think about it and just almost regroup, if you will.”

He regrouped well. Thursday’s 4-under 68 in the opening round of the Players Championship was welcome, if not a relief.

“Literally every single thing you could imagine I did quite a bit better,” Thomas said Thursday.

“Just feels great to get off to a great start at a big tournament, a tournament that I love. I always enjoy playing this place. I just feel like it’s just a fun course to play.

“I feel like you can, given the different wind conditions or whatever, you have a lot of variety of shots and things that Sawgrass kind of asks of you. I can’t necessarily say I’ve been playing well because last week was my first tournament in six months, but I felt I was more than capable of doing that.

“But just was able to knock a little bit of rust off … a lot of rust off … last week, and obviously felt a lot more comfortable today.”

Thomas, the 2021 Players champion, posted a score one shot behind early leader Maverick McNealy. By the end of the day, Lee Hodges, Sepp Straka, Sahith Theegala and Austin Smotherman joined a five-way tie for the lead at 5-under. Smotherman will wake up to a 14-foot birdie putt on the par-5 ninth for a chance to take the first-round lead alone with a 66.

Thomas — a two-time major champion with 16 PGA Tour victories — made six birdies on Thursday, including his first three holes after starting at the 10th. His only bogeys came on a three-putt at the par-3 17th and a scramble on the 18th — the two statistically hardest holes in the first round.

“Man, it helps,” he said of his good start. “I kind of had a deep breath to myself walking off 9 and, like I said, internally, ‘I needed that,’” Thomas said. “Just to … again, I feel like I’ve been playing well at home. I feel like I’m doing the right thing swinging well. I feel confident with things. But again, until it happens in competition, it’s kind of hard to fully buy into you’re ready.

“I think that was kind of what I said last week. My main goal is getting through these weeks and really feeling like I’m not having to try so hard to be in a good place at Augusta (for the Masters).

“I think yes, I know that I want to try and play well and try and win these next couple events, but it’s also going to be harder for me to probably continue to focus and keep my concentration this week versus in a couple weeks. Just all part of it.”

Thomas got thrown back into the deep end this week, paired the first two rounds with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and No. 3 Tommy Fleetwood — the last two FedEx Cup champions. He ended up winning the group, edging out Fleetwood’s 3-under 69 and Scheffler’s even-par 72.

Scheffler spent all day scrambling with a driver that continually missed fairways — often by alarmingly large margins. Every hole seemed like a stress test.

“Yeah, just kept going right,” Scheffler said after missing half of the 14 fairways only because his drive on the sixth hole bounced off a tree and into the short grass to set up a birdie. “I mean, it’s easier hitting it from the fairway than it is from the rough. I played from the rough a lot today.”

Fleetwood ignited with putts of 24, 20 and 12 feet for an eagle-birdie-birdie surge on 16, 17 and 18.

“It’s a huge bonus of a stretch, really, because I played really solid, really, that whole nine holes. I left a few short,” Fleetwood said. “I struggled with the pace of the greens all day really. They took me by surprise. … I just left way too many putts short and struggled with my pace a little bit, and up until that point on 16 had like two or three sort of mid-range chances; hadn’t holed anything.

“A complete bonus of a stretch, but it was really good golf through that point.”