Justin Thomas makes two late birdies to restore his lead at Hilton Head

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Justin Thomas made a pair of birdies on the crusty, breezy back nine at Harbour Town to salvage a 2-under 69 for a two-shot lead Friday at the RBC Heritage, his first 36-hole lead in more than four years.

Thomas is winless since the 2022 PGA Championship and is weary of the topic. He also knows there's a long way to go on a course that demands precision while allowing a low score.

Si Woo Kim had one of those low scores, a blistering start that had him at 8 under through 12 holes until he settled for a 64. He was two shots behind, along with Russell Henley (68).

Six players were within four shots of the lead, a group that includes defending champion Scottie Scheffler, who didn't have much go right in his round of 70. On the scoring pins, he was out of position. He was in the fairway for the tucked pins. There wasn't as many birdie opportunities, but he's still right in the mix.

Andrew Novak (65) and Tommy Fleetwood (66) were three behind.

It was shaping up to be a wide-open weekend at a tournament where no one seems to stress too much coming a week after the Masters. Not everyone, of course. The mystery Friday were the four golf grips — the shaft snapped in half — outside the scoring trailer.

Thomas was in a far better mood, especially the end of the round. One of those tough pins was on the 13th, just to the right of steep bunker framed by railroad ties. He played wedge beautifully to the wide front of the green and holed a 15-foot putt.

Far more impressive was the par-5 15th, where Thomas had 287 yards with one towering tree that always seems to get in the way. He prefers to hit a 5-wood for a little more altitude. He hammered a 3-wood onto the green to set up a two-putt birdie, and finished with three pars.

The shot on No. 15 also illustrated the adjustments he's making with a fill-in caddie, Joe Greiner, as his regular looper Matt Minister recovers from a back injury.

“He's still getting used to everything as much as I am,” Thomas said. "We were talking about the shot and trying to hit it right at the green. The tree was kind of in the way. I was like, ‘I feel like it’s a good 3-wood number.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.’

“Then after I hit it, he goes, ‘I’m so glad you said that because I thought it was a perfect cut 3-wood, but I didn’t want to say that.’ That’s some of the funny adjustments and things we’re working with.”

This doesn't feel like a working vacation for Kim because he missed out on the Masters for the first time since 2016, his rookie year on the PGA Tour.

“I got so much frustrated last week watching Masters, but somehow I got to move on. So I’m just trying to focus this week,” Kim said.

He got everyone's attention with his start.

The signature moment was his 3-wood from 275 yards that rolled out to 5 feet for eagle on the par-5 fifth hole. And then he ran off four straight birdies around the turn starting on the short par-4 ninth, three of the putts inside 8 feet, and a 15-footer on the 11th.

He couldn't sustain the momentum, but gets into the final group with Thomas on the weekend.

Scheffler was slowed by a mud ball on the par-5 fifth that put him out of position, and a three-putt that gave him a bogey; and hitting a tree on the eighth that led to another bogey. He finished with nine pars and a little perspective.

“Just little stuff like that that can turn your day the wrong way,” he said. “I fought pretty hard today and hung in there well to be four back on the weekend.”

Scheffler's season was delayed a month by his hand injury and he's still looking for his first win. Thomas last won at Southern Hills in the 2022 PGA Championship, though his game has turned enough in the right direction that he is No. 8 in the world ranking.

“The majority of it has just been pressing and trying too hard,” he said of his drought. "I almost feel like I'm kind of past the point where fortunately you all have stopped asked me — which is nice — but I would also prefer to get that over with.

“Something I feel like I did so well there for a couple of years is I just let tournaments come to me and I just trusted my ability,” he said. “That's really been my key this week is I’m just trying to really trust my game and commit to what I’m doing.”

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Adam Scott walks on the 16th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Taylor Pendrith, of Canada, putts on the 16th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Sepp Straka celebrates his Eagle on the 16th hole during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Andrew Novak stands on the 16th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Ludvig Aberg, of Sweden, hits from a bunker on the 16th hole during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Russell Henley lines up a putt on the 16th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Si Woo Kim practices before taking a shot on the eighth hole during the first round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Scottie Scheffler reacts to his putt on the 17th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Justin Thomas hits from the 18th tee during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Justin Thomas lines up a putt on the 17th green during the second round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament, Friday, April 18, 2025, in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)