The Players Championship turned back the clock to the late 2000s on Thursday, with 2009 U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover and 2008 Tour Championship winner Camilo Villegas leading the field at Sawgrass at -6, along with J.J. Spaun. Rory McIlroy, along with TGL stalwarts Min Woo Lee and Billy Horschel, stood one stroke back at -5, followed by an entire cavalcade of players at -4.
Glover paced the field with an up-and-down round that ended spectacularly — four straight birdies on the final four holes — and gets a good rest until his afternoon Friday tee time. "I deep down believe I can still compete out here at 45," he said after his round, "and I don't want to stop anytime soon."
At the other end of the leaderboard, some impressive names turned in some less-than-impressive scores. Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Thomas finished the day at +6, Max Homa at +7 and Viktor Hovland at an ugly +8, a full 80 strokes on the day. Most, understandably, declined to comment on their rounds after they wrapped.
"The thing about this place is, there's always some really good scores and always some really bad scores," Glover said. "It's razor thin. The margins are razor thin here, akin to say Augusta or Bay Hill. You get off just a little, you can make big numbers in a hurry."
Plenty of unhappy players could attest to that Thursday. Sawgrass' famed Island Green claimed its share of victims, like Max Greyserman, who quadruple-bogeyed the hole:
From T55 to T121 in one hole.
Max Greyserman makes a quadruple bogey 7 on No. 17. pic.twitter.com/zYvaurLM7Q
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 13, 2025
But perhaps no one exemplified the up-and-down nature of The Players quite like Justin Thomas, who plummeted from an early tie for the lead all the way down to the bottom reaches of the leaderboard after going double-triple on 17 and 18:
T1 ➡️ T56 in a three-hole span.
Volatility early at TPC Sawgrass. pic.twitter.com/gcHwkewOF8— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 13, 2025
On the other end of the "anything can happen" spectrum, consider Chandler Philips, who carded three eagles on the day en route to playing the four par-5s at a total of -7. He finished the day at -4, capping off a round that marked the first time a player had three eagles at the Players since 1983.
Defending champion Scottie Scheffler kept himself in the mix with a four-birdie, one-bogey round of -3 that left him three strokes back of the leaders. Scheffler, McIlroy and Xander Schauffele (E) will tee off at 8:24 ET on Friday morning.