Players 2025: Justin Thomas ties Players scoring record with incredible 16-shot turnaround

PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Years from now, when Justin Thomas looks back on tying the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course record of 10-under-par 62 that he fashioned on Friday with 11 birdies, the swings he took and the putts he rolled will be a blur. How he felt—that’s something that will stick with him forever.

Rare of those days when the mind and body mesh the way they did for Thomas in the second round of the Players Championship, and almost non-existent are the times when a golfer is so completely discombobulated the way the 15-time winner was on Thursday in stumbling to a 78, only to rebound by a tournament-record 16 shots in 24 hours to climb 105 places up the leaderboard.

Even for those who fully understand the notoriously fickle nature of the game have reason to ask: How is that even possible?

“In my opinion, it's one of the hardest things to do,” Thomas said Friday while analyzing the incredible turnaround, both physically and mentally.

“I think it's arguably [Scottie Scheffler’s] best attribute, is how well he's able to stay present and stay in the moment. It's just as much of a skill as it is 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.”

The change in attitude might have started on Thursday, when Thomas birdied his last two holes—the eighth and ninth—and it continued despite a later tee time for the second round. Thomas birdied Nos. 1 and 2, sprinkled in three more birdies on the front, and then went on an absolute tear on the back, with six birdies notched in a seven-hole stretch.

When, at the island 17th, Thomas made a 22-foot birdie that sharply broke in the last couple of feet, setting off a huge roar from thousands surrounding the hole, he’d pushed himself to 11 under for the round, with a chance to own the scoring record alone. (What Thomas didn’t recall, until he saw himself hugging Tom Hoge on a video board at the 17th, was that he’d had a close-up view of Hoge’s 62, playing with him in the third round of 2023.)

Would his playing partners for this day, Hideki Matsuyama and Ludvig Aberg, see something memorable, only to forget it? It was not to be, because Thomas pushed his fairway-wood tee shot at 18 into the rough, and when the long grass tugged at his club on the approach, he watched his ball dribble into the water. Indicative of his groove, though, Thomas responded with an approach to two feet for an impressive bogey save and signed for the 62.

“I'm in no way, shape or form letting that dwell on the great round I had today,” Thomas said of the wet finish.

“That was one of the best rounds I've played, for sure,” he said. “Mentally, it was the biggest thing. 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.’ I putted the ball beautifully, too. Just one of those days.”

To fully grasp and appreciate the remarkable comeback is to know just how flustered Thomas was on Thursday. Entering the week, he’d played impressively this season, with three top-10 finishes in five starts, including a runner-up at the American Express and T-9 in his last tournament play in the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines. Thomas is a past champion of the Players, in 2021, and has every reason to expect his best here.

But in the first round, after starting on No. 10 and making two birdies while not striking it well, Thomas missed the island into the water at 17 and suffered a double bogey, and then he drove into the water at 18 and made 7. He said he made “wrong” decisions at both holes.

“That's the kind of stuff that pisses me off,” Thomas said. “If I manage everything well, even as bad as I hit it, I still feel like I could have got it around around par. … If I didn't chip and putt well yesterday, I would have shot an 85. I got up-and-down nine or 10 times. It was wild.”

The torture wasn’t over. Thomas shot five over in a four-hole stretch from 4 through 7, and despite the final two birdies, the final score of 78 put him tied for 134th in the field of 144. He looked looked doomed to miss only his second cut here in 10 tries.

Thomas admitted that his wife, Jillian, who watched him finish at the 18th hole on Friday with their 4-month-old daughter, Molly Grace, in her arms, got an earful of golf talk on Thursday night.

“She was great,” Thomas said. “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.”

What Thomas convinced himself, in mapping out a game plan with his caddie, Matt “The Reverend” Minister, was to be more aggressive, because he’d felt like he’d gone into a shell when contending this season. “It’s not me,” he said. “It’s just funny, Rev and I talked about his week, when I do get it going, just keep it going. Don’t be bashful.”

He got it right, because a 62 is anything but bashful.