Justin Thomas had a round to match the immaculate weather Thursday at Harbour Town with 11 birdies that allowed him to tie the course record with a 10-under 61 to lead the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head Island, S.C.

There was little to complain about on a day of hardly any wind, a course in mint condition and warm sunshine that added to the RBC Heritage being the ideal place to decompress from the hectic week at the Masters.

Defending champion Scottie Scheffler, coming off a tie for fourth at the Masters, had very little stress at Harbour Town in a round of 64 that looked easy — which is not to say it felt that way.

“I will never say that golf is easy, ever. Golf is hard,” Scheffler said with a laugh.

But he was out of position only once off the tee and one other time when he went long off a green and both times he saved par. Otherwise, he putted for birdie or better on the other 16 holes and converted enough chances for a start that only looked good — not great — because of Thomas with the lowest score at Harbour Town in 10 years.

Bay Hill winner Russell Henley also had a 64, while Wyndham Clark was another shot back at 65. The group at 66 included former Hilton Head winner Matt Fitzpatrick and Gary Woodland, on the road back from brain surgery and building momentum from a runner-up finish in Houston.

Fifty players in the 72-man field broke par on a course that yielded an average score of 69.2

“I felt like if you compared my four rounds last week to today, today would be a much less stressful round of golf in terms of scrambling for a par,” Scheffler said. “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.

“Overall, yeah, I would say stress-free day.”

Thomas is winless since capturing his second PGA Championship title in 2022, though his game has been trending enough in the right direction that he is No. 8 in the world. The Masters was a disappointment — no round lower than 70, 13 shots behind in a tie for 36th — but he put in some good work at Hilton Head for two days and made it pay off.

Six of his birdie putts were inside 10 feet, and he threw in three birdies from the 35-foot range, one of them on the 17th hole that put him in range of the course record.

He thought he had it with an 8-iron to a front pin on the 18th, which runs along the Calibogue Sound, only to miss the 5-foot putt. He also missed a 4-foot par putt on the 10th.

“I’ve been playing really well, really solid. Felt good about things,” Thomas said.

Joel Dahmen was eight shots behind before he even teed off, and then set the course record with a 10-under 62 to take a two-shot lead in the PGA Tour’s Corales Puntacana Championship in the Dominican Republic.

Dahmen, whose lone PGA Tour victory was four years ago at this opposite-field tournament in the Dominican Republic, finished with three birdies over his last four holes on the Corales course at Puntacana Resort.

He led by two shots over Keith Mitchell, Garrick Higgo and Matt Wallace on a day when just more than half of the 132-man field shot in the 60s.