Sixteen shots. That was the difference between Justin Thomas' opening round at The Players Championship on Thursday and his second round on Friday. It was quite a turnaround.
The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is not the simplest of tracks, but the 15-time PGA Tour winner looked desperately out of sorts on Thursday as he stumbled to a 78.
No one can ever accuse Thomas of throwing the towel in, however, and he responded to the disappointment of that poor start to bounce back by a tournament-record 16 shots, which saw him climb 105 places up the leaderboard.
His extraordinary round of 62, which included a record 11 birdies, had statisticians scrambling around in a panic.
One of the most incredible stats from his two rounds so far is the 9.09 strokes ball-striking (Off The Tee & Approach) that he lost on Thursday, the worst round of his career and the third worst round of any golfer in 2025.
Thomas was -3.222 in terms of Strokes Gained: Off The Tee on Thursday
Thomas is unlikely to care too much about that one now - not since he followed it up with "one of the best rounds" he's played.
"I felt like I did an unbelievable job of just staying, keeping my eyes forward, keeping my blinders on, not looking backwards, forwards, anything like that," he reflected.
The two-time PGA Championship winner has a history of going low, and is one of just 14 different players to have shot a 59 or lower in PGA Tour history.
Thomas fired a 59 in round one of the Sony Open at Waialee Country Club in 2017, and is clearly a player capable of getting on a hit run with the putter.
In fact, no one has carded more PGA Tour rounds of 62 or lower (13) over the last 40 years than Thomas, not even the great Tiger Woods (9).
Thomas was dialled in during the second round at TPC Sawgrass
Friday's spectacular round saw him gain +9.4 shots on the field. It was his best round from 892 played, although he still sits seven shots off the pace set by Min Woo Lee and Akshay Bhatia at the halfway stage.
Thomas started Friday's round with birdies at the first two holes, before making further gains at the fifth, seventh and ninth to make the turn in 31.
After dropping a 22-foot birdie putt on the signature 'island' hole, he found himself needing a par or better to break the course record on Pete Dye's famous layout.
However, he made a rare mistake on the difficult 18th, finding the water with his approach, with a fine up-and-down seeing him escape with a bogey.
Even so, 10-under-par represented a pretty decent day's work, with Thomas stating after his round: "I should have a lot of faith in my game because I can do stuff like today."
If he can get anywhere near those levels over the weekend, he might just find himself in with a chance of victory which, after Thursday's round, would be quite remarkable.
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