Justin Thomas got off to a superb start at The Players Championship on Thursday, firing a brilliant 68 at TPC Sawgrass.

Thomas has only played one event since the Ryder Cup in September, after he underwent back surgery in November.

The 32-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, played some splendid golf on day one at Sawgrass and that came as a surprise to a lot of people.

Thomas admitted he felt humiliated at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, after he shot two rounds of 79 at Bay Hill.

So his opening round of 68 at The Players Championship on Thursday would have been very welcome indeed.

Sawgrass is never an easy course to play when you’re not 100 per cent confident with your game.

So kudos to Thomas for stepping up to the plate in Jacksonville on Thursday.

What Justin Thomas told his caddie during rain delay on day one of The Players

Thomas looked like a completely different player at Sawgrass on Thursday to the one that we saw at Bay Hill last week.

After his opening round 68, he spoke to reporters about how he managed to bounce back so quickly from his disastrous performance at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

One journalist suggested that it was pretty incredible how he handled shooting two 79s at Bay Hill.

“You probably wouldn’t say that if you were around me on Friday afternoon. I was more just sad and upset,“ Thomas 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 not really — it’s hard to give yourself too much grace. But it took a little longer for me to kind of decompress and just feel like I was able to get to a place where I’m like, okay, if I had this over tomorrow, what would I do differently to learn from it kind of thing.

“And it was, I felt like it really was just all mental. I had a little bit of fatigue out there. I had a hard time keeping my focus the whole — just like I did going back out after the rain delay. I said to Rev, I was like, I’m very spacey, more than I was before, so just almost like a little talk just to get me back into it.

“I haven’t had to keep my focus on something for five hours in a highly competitive atmosphere like this for a long time. So it just takes a little bit.“

Justin Thomas shares how he feels mentally after day one at The Players

The two-time major champion was delighted with his round of 68 on day one of The Players, and rightly so.

“Yeah, it felt great,“ Thomas said.

“Just feels great to get off to a great start at a big tournament, a tournament that I love. I always enjoy playing this place. I just feel like it’s just a fun course to play.

“I feel like you can, given the different wind conditions or whatever, you have a lot of variety of shots and things that Sawgrass kind of asks of you.

“But yeah, I can’t necessarily say I’ve been playing well because last week was my first tournament in six months, but I felt I was more than capable of doing that.

“But just was able to knock a little bit of rust off last — a lot of rust off last week, and obviously felt a lot more comfortable today.“

It will be fascinating to see whether Thomas is able to maintain the form he showed on Thursday during the final three rounds of the Players Championship.