PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | For centuries now, the quixotic quest to figure out golf has been written in the creased faces and hollow eyes of those who play it, those same features occasionally lighting up like a Times Square night when something so hard seems to come easily for a time.
Few things in golf seem to last forever and many of them – the feel of a perfectly struck iron shot or the pleasing thump of a good bunker shot – are often fleeting.
And just when the game seems to hide, it can suddenly reappear with a “good to see you again” hug.
Enter Scottie Scheffler and Justin Thomas, who spent their windblown, rain-spattered Thursday together – along with Tommy Fleetwood – at the Players Championship, another day in the eternal chase.
Let’s start with Scheffler because he is undeniably the best player in the world but, because he has set such a ridiculously high bar with his play the past three years, the recent static crackling through his game has been off brand.
Scheffler signed for level-par 72 on Thursday, which looks pedestrian by his standards, and it was marked by several loose threads, which is a discreet way of saying he had trouble driving it in the short grass.
That’s not a big problem at some places but at Pete Dye’s Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, it becomes a matter of continually untying knots. The Stadium Course is not a straight-line layout because it asks curving questions. For instance – the first hole asks for a fade off the tee and a draw into the green, the second does the opposite and so on.
It is, however, a spot-to-spot course. Hit it to one spot then to the next spot or the Stadium Course becomes a green-grass version of the square-peg-and-round-hole conundrum.
In his last two starts, Scheffler has finished T12 and T24, an inevitable flat spot after 18 consecutive top-10 finishes, and has seemed mildly impatient with questions about what’s going on.
Scheffler struggled to put tee shots into play in the first half of his round, leaving a handful of shots to the right, sometimes wide right, forcing him to scramble for pars rather than play more stress-free golf.
“Yeah, just kept going right,” Scheffler said after hitting just seven of 14 fairways, one of those coming at the par-4 sixth where another tee shot headed right banged off a live oak and wound up in the fairway, leading to a birdie.
In his last two starts, Scheffler has finished T12 and T24, an inevitable flat spot after 18 consecutive top-10 finishes, and has seemed mildly impatient with questions about what’s going on. Going back to the driver he’s used the past two years after briefly putting a newer model into play hasn’t flipped the invisible switch.
Scheffler’s true annoyance has shown through in moments, including when he tossed his golf ball into the water on Bay Hill’s 18th hole after a late three-putt. On Thursday at the Stadium course, he dropped his 3-wood after sailing his second shot to the right on the par-5 second and gave himself a facetious fist pump after a par putt slid by on the seventh.
There were good things – his approach shot to 2 feet at the sixth and a wedge shot to set up a closing birdie on his finishing hole, the par-5 ninth, stood out – but it was a ragged day.
“I mean, it’s easier hitting it from the fairway than it is from the rough. I played from the rough a lot today,” said Scheffler, who is a collective 41-under par in the three previous Players Championships, 17 shots better than anyone else.
Meanwhile, Thomas was shooting a 4-under-par 68 that conjured memories of his 2021 victory at the Stadium Course while offering a needed dose of reassurance after his return to competition last week after a lengthy recovery from back surgery landed like a face plant.
Thomas underwent microdiscectomy surgery in mid-November, took extra time before returning to the tour and was rewarded with a pair of 79s at Bay Hill last week, enough to bruise the most optimistic of souls.
What was different Thursday?
“Literally everything,” Thomas said. “Actually, I don’t know. My bunker game and my chipping last week was pretty ridiculous for someone who shot 14-over par.
“But literally every single thing you could imagine I did quite a bit better.”
Then a day like Thursday happens and last week was suddenly a long way away.
Asked if he allowed himself some grace after missing the cut at Bay Hill, annually one of the most difficult spots on tour, Thomas suggested it wasn’t that easy to do.
“You probably wouldn’t say that if you were around me on Friday afternoon. I was more just sad and upset,” he said.
“Look, I wasn’t expecting to go be in contention and have a chance to win the golf tournament. 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.”
Then a day like Thursday happens and last week was suddenly a long way away.
“I kind of had a deep breath to myself walking off [No.] 9 and I said, internally, I needed that,” Thomas said.