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PONTE VEDRE BEACH, Fla. — When Justin Thomas’ day at TPC Sawgrass was finished on Saturday, he let out an extended exhalation and rolled his eyes as he walked off the ninth green.
Thomas won The Players Championship last year, and yet he looked as relieved to have survived the day Saturday as he had been to lift the trophy a year ago.
Trying to become the first player ever to defend a Players title, Thomas is not leading the tournament. He’s tied for 15th through 36 holes at 3-under. But he survived golf’s equivalent of going 12 rounds with Mike Tyson and living to tell about it.
The 2022 Players Championship has been a challenge of epic proportions, with weather delays pushing the finish to Monday and conditions that have messed with the minds of the best players in the world.
Tommy Fleetwood and Tom Hoge, each of whom shot 6-under 66 in their respective opening rounds, both completed the first round on Thursday thanks to their early tee times. They still lead the tournament entering Sunday.
That, however, is probably because Hoge didn’t have to play a single hole on Saturday because his second-round tee time was so late, and Fleetwood played only three holes on a day when the winds were sustained at 25 to 30 mph and gusting higher than that.
Joaquin Niemann, Keith Mitchell and Anirban Lahiri, each of whom shot 5-under 67 in their first round, are one shot behind Hoge and Fleetwood, because they, too, never began their respective second rounds.
Play will resume at 8:15 a.m. Sunday with 27 players still having to complete the second round. The third round will begin Sunday as well, with a Monday final-round finish scheduled.
The average score for the second round, when play was suspended, was 75.37, and it’s likely to go higher Sunday morning as the round finishes up. The average was 75.41 for the opening round in 2007, the first year The Players was in May. The highest ever for the opening two rounds was 76.19 in 2000 when it was in March.
“Insane,” Thomas called the challenge.
With temperatures expected to dip into the 30s overnight Saturday, a frost delay cannot be discounted before players are able to play Sunday morning.
Thomas’s 69 and Bubba Watson’s 68 were the low scores of the second round, with both at 3-under for the tournament. They were among just four players who broke par in the second round, with Keegan Bradley (71) and Billy Horschel (70) the other two.
“You’re talking about an extreme day today,’’ Brooks Koepka said after shooting 81 in his second round.
“Today was one of the toughest rounds I ever played,’’ Daniel Berger, who’s 2-under through 36 holes, said. “Every time I looked up, the ball was going further and further and away from the flagstick. I hit it 40 yards offline quite often on the front nine. The conditions were tough. [I’m] just happy to be done and get some rest.’’
Rory McIlroy, who’s 2-over, tried to recall a day as difficult as Saturday and said, “Bethpage ’09 U.S. Open is probably the closest I’ve experienced to something like this.’’
Bradley said the wind was so wild it was impossible to properly club yourself.
“I hit 9-iron from 95 yards [on the 12th hole] and then a couple holes later I hit 9-iron from 208 yards [on 16],’’ Bradley said. “To me, there’s no yardage. It’s just the trajectory of your ball, whatever club you can get to fit that window, that’s the shot. We’re lucky that it’s wet. Man, I’ll tell you, 17 and 18 are playing hard. I don’t know if I’ve ever played two holes as hard as that.’’
Sam Ryder said: “I live 20 minutes away. I play this course pretty regularly. I’m looking at shots [and] lines I’d never usually take. It’s like I’m playing a different version of golf, so I’m kind of just deleting those from the memory bank and just trying to commit to certain lines from certain tees and stuff like that.’’
Thomas called the entire day “very weird.’’
“It was obviously hard to get into a rhythm,’’ he said. “[I] had a lot of different emotions — first off thinking it looks like we were on the right side of the draw and being pretty excited about that and then realizing that was very much not the fact and then just having to get over that as quick as I could because it’s obviously frustrating, especially when I feel like I’m playing well.
“I’m thrilled with how I played and how I competed today. It was a very, very tough day, and I just stayed very patient and executed well.’’
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