Justin Thomas loves Hilton Head. “I wish we played more places like it,” remarked the American, after he hardly put a foot wrong in firing an opening round 61, 10-under-par, on the Pete Dye-designed course to jump into the lead in the RBC Heritage Classic, one of the PGA Tour’s $20 million signature events.
Thomas, without a win since his 2022 US PGA Championship success, bounced back from a disappointing Masters, where he finished tied-36th, to put on a masterclass on one of his favourite courses to take a three-stroke lead over world number one Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley.
Shane Lowry, the only Irish player in the limited-field tournament, opened with a 68 – four birdies and a lone bogey – but saw a number of birdie attempts shave the hole or narrowly come up short as he, too, sought to bounce back from a Masters where he was in contention until a final round 81 saw him finish tied-42nd.
Lowry – who next week defends his Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Rory McIlroy – saw his birdie attempt on the first hole finish one revolution short of the hole and then almost chipped in for eagle on the Par 5 second, tapping in for his opening birdie.
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His only bogey came on the third hole where the Offalyman’s approach found a greenside bunker but back-to-back birdies on the fifth (from inside two feet) and sixth (from 26 feet) saw him turn in 34, while his only birdie on the back nine came on the Par 5 15th when he again sank a 26 footer.
Thomas – who has four top-10s so far this season without getting a win – admitted to not playing well at Augusta National and spent the past couple of days working on some aspects of his game and got the results:
“I’ve been playing really well, really solid. Felt good about things. I just didn’t play well last week. I put some really good work in I felt like the couple days leading into the start today, and I felt prepared. It was just about going out and doing it, and it was nice to do so.
“I think more architects should design places like this. It kind of stands of test of time, I think. Especially if we continue to get weather like this and if these fairways get firm, the greens are already getting firm, it’s going to be everything we want by the end of the week. I just think it’s a really, really cool place that requires you to think on every single shot you’re hitting, and you can’t get lazy.”
Scheffler, the defending champion, opened with a bogey-free 64 that featured seven birdies:
“I felt like if you compared my four rounds last week (at Augusta) to today, today would be a much less stressful round of golf in terms of scrambling for a par. A lot of the stuff I had to do last week I felt like I didn’t have to do today to shoot a good score. The golf course is obviously a bit different, but I was in position most of the day today. I hit a lot of really iron shots. I got off to a good start. Overall, yeah, fairly I would say stress-free day,” said Scheffler.
