CROMWELL, Conn. — This was not a day for data, not the time for the analytics and technical precision that defines golf at the highest level.

Justin Thomas’ kind of day, that’s what Friday at The Travelers was.

“I have had some good rounds in conditions like this, because I can’t really play the golf swing, I have to play more golf,” Thomas said, after his second-round 64, good enough to tie Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood atop leaderboard. “And I can’t be worried about (technique), I can’t be over the ball thinking about what it’s like here and if I’m getting this way or weight one way or another. If the wind is blowing 25 or 30 off my left shoulder, I need to figure out how to make it not go right and I need to keep it lower than this apex and it’s just all feel.

“Really there’s something to be said for that, and I just need to do a better job of doing that when it’s blowing 5 miles per hour and not 35 miles per hour.”

Thomas, 32, has been trying to recapture his game and, like all of the top golfers in the world, trying to approach the outrageously high bar set by Scheffler, who has been No. 1 in the world for more than 100 weeks. Thomas was No.1 for five weeks in 2018. He has risen from No.19 after last season to No.5 as he began the Travelers, the last star-studded Signature Event on the PGA Tour in 2025.

And like many in this field, he got to Connecticut smarting from his adventures in the rain at the U.S. Open in Oakmont, Pa., last week, missing the cut.

“It unfortunately hasn’t become any easier (to get over such things),” he said. “I still get pretty (angry) about it and it still weighs on me more than it should. You hear a lot of guys talk about it, their golf defining them, it doesn’t change who they are as a person, but I still very clearly think of myself as (a) person (by) how I’m playing golf. I would like to change that, but it’s just the reality; it means a lot to me.

“You could say it’s good or bad. … I felt like I played pretty terribly, but I just wanted to get some work in because I felt like I was really close and I just wasn’t sharp.”

So Thomas, characteristically, spent his unplanned, unwelcomed Sunday off on the course practicing. The TPC River Highlands, even if the wind was blowing 15 MPH, with gusts of 30, and swirling across most of the fairways, was a welcome sight. He first played here as an amateur in 2013, one of the many sponsor’s exemptions that have helped launch careers. Thomas has returned for the 10th time, though he has never finished higher than a tie for third in 2016. Last year, he tied for fifth and took home $262,500.

“Coming to a place that I like and I feel like I kind of know, it’s a lot easier for me to get over last week versus maybe if I was going to a course that I haven’t had success at or I feel like I have a hard time playing,” Thomas said. “Then it could be a little, like, ‘Uh-oh, what are we going to do,’ kind of thing.”

Thomas shot 67 to open the Travelers this time, five strokes behind Scheffler and Austin Eckroat. On Day Two, some of the world’s best were humbled by the wind. Scheffler was in good shape until 17, when his tee shot blew off into the left bunker, his second shot landed in the water and he took a double bogey. J.J. Spaun, coming off his U.S. Open win struggled again, hitting bunkers and, on No. 13, the railroad tracks, and finished plus-1. He’s 4 over. Rory McIlroy, who’d called this course the perfect “chaser” or “tonic" after Oakmont, was 2 over through 13 holes, and at times could only look to the heavens and laugh. But McIroy and Keegan Bradley played their way back into the mix.

Thomas, who made five successive birdies one point, Denny McCarthy, who also shot 64 and trails by two, Fleetwood, who eagled 13 and 15, was 5-under on the back nine to tie Scheffler and Thomas, and Jason Day were among those who found their way onto the tightening, crowded leaderboard.

“I would use ‘robotic’ as maybe the word; it’s not as ‘robotic,'” Scheffler said. “When you’re playing under no conditions or very light winds, I think you can hit a similar flight on every single shot and it would be fine. On days like today you have to work the ball both ways. You have to hit low shots, hit high shots. You’re always playing a different type of shot, especially in conditions like this.”

Thomas has won 16 PGA Tour events, and two majors, the PGA Championships in 2017 and ’22.

“Justin is a guy that I looked up to from a young age. He was a really talented junior player, talented amateur player. He had a lot early success out here on tour,” said Scheffler, 28, the defending Travelers champ. “Justin is an extremely hard worker, he’s more of a ‘practicer’ than I am. I like to play a lot when I practice. With Justin, he is very, very disciplined in the way he approaches things, and that’s why you’ve seen him have success for so many years out here.

“He sticks to his process. He doesn’t let things kind of get to him, I think, and I think a lot of that goes back to how hard he prepares to come out here and play. He’s very, I would say, professional in the way he approaches things.”

On today’s tour, Thomas may be considered an old pro at the ripe old age of 32. A golfer’s golfer and on a blustery Friday he did what pro’s do, he adjusted, played the conditions he was dealt. Halfway through, he’s tied with the best player in the world, and as the challenge is about to go from blustery to sweltering, the last two days are shaping up as a showdown in that Travelers’ tradition.

“I’m glad that everybody is kind of experiencing it and playing because I think it’s a great tournament,” Thomas said. “It’s deserved a lot of accolades and a lot of respect from players and fans and everybody. Now the (top-ranked) guys are coming to play it, and I think they see it. It’s a really fun golf course, especially the week after the U.S. Open. That can sometimes not be that fun. It feels like a little bit of relief, but it also still obviously requires a lot, but it’s a totally different kind.”

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