NORTON, Mass. — It took a dis­ap­point­ing par for Scot­tie Schef­fler to real­ize he was mak­ing enough birdies to have a shot at 59, and he seized on the chance Fri­day with four birdies over his last five holes to post the 12th sub-60 round in PGA Tour history.

For the longest time, it looked like his 59 might not even be the best of the day at The North­ern Trust.

As Schef­fler was sign­ing his card, Dustin John­son had already set off on an explo­sive start that put some buzz into the TPC Boston even with­out any spec­ta­tors on the course.

Birdie. Eagle. Birdie. Eagle. Birdie.

He was 9 under through eight holes, and with two birdies to start the back nine, John­son was 11 under through 11 holes.

And then he turned into a par machine, with only two good looks at birdie the rest of the way, and one deci­sion he’d like to have back. John­son hit dri­ver on the par‑5 18th into a slope of grungy grass, when a 3‑wood was all he would have need­ed to have a mid-iron into the green. He had to lay up, hit wedge to 25 feet and two-putted for a sev­enth straight par.

John­son shot a 60, had a two-shot lead, and it almost felt as though con­do­lences were in order.

“If I hit the fair­way there, it’s a pret­ty easy 4. But I didn’t, so shot 60,” John­son said. “That’s OK, though. I’m pret­ty hap­py with it. Pret­ty hap­py with my posi­tion lead­ing into the weekend.”

John­son was at 15-under 127, two shots ahead of Schef­fler and Cameron Davis (66). Schef­fler fin­ished with two putts from across the 18th green for his 12th birdie, knock­ing in his last putt from 4 feet.

“You don’t real­ly get a putt for 59 often, so I was quite ner­vous over the putt, but that’s noth­ing new,” Schef­fler said. “I get ner­vous over every shot. That’s just play­ing com­pet­i­tive golf.”

Not since the John Deere Clas­sic in 2010 have two play­ers had 60 or low­er on the same day. That con­tributed to Tiger Woods feel­ing irri­tat­ed by his pedes­tri­an 71 that allowed him to make the cut on the num­ber and left him 12 shots back.

“I just didn’t quite have it,” Woods said. “I was close to snap­ping a cou­ple clubs today, but I didn’t, so that’s a positive.”

Schef­fler, the smooth 24-year-old rook­ie from Texas, didn’t do hard­ly any­thing wrong. Two good wedges from tough spots around the green set up birdies ear­ly, and he kept pour­ing them in. That includ­ed a 6‑foot par putt on the 17th hole that set up the birdie he need­ed for a 59.

On the 18th, his tee shot hopped out of the rough and into the first cut. From 215 yards, he wise­ly aimed toward the left sec­tion of the green, hit 5‑iron just short and had two putts from 85 feet for a 59. He rolled the long eagle attempt about 4 feet short, went over to his bag for a swig of water while wait­ing his turn, and calm­ly rolled it in.

Schef­fler was try­ing to make as many birdies as pos­si­ble. It was only after he missed a 10-foot birdie chance on the 13th that he began to real­ize what he was doing.

“I was like, ‘Oh, man, that would have been a nice one to go in’ because I was play­ing real­ly good at that point,” he said. “Kind of clicked like, ‘Hey, I have a chance to do some­thing pret­ty cool today.’”

That makes five straight years with a 59 or bet­ter on the PGA Tour.

This stood out as the 59 that gen­er­at­ed the least amount of excite­ment, not on a spec­ta­tor-free course with no score­boards in the groups. Schef­fler played with Kevin Streel­man and Tony Fin­au, and only one of them knew what was going on.

“We don’t have the sign bear­ers, so I brought it up to Tony on 17 green, and he had no idea,” Streel­man said. “He thought it was 7 or 8 (under) and I’m like, ‘No, he’s like 11 right now.’ That’s the dif­fer­ence. There would def­i­nite­ly have been elec­tric­i­ty, fans run­ning in. He still had the pres­sure to step up there on 18 and make that nice up-and-down, and he played awesome.

“He played per­fect golf today.”

So did John­son. He made it look so easy that Marc Leish­man, play­ing in his group, start­ing won­der­ing about the low­est score any­one ever shot. “A 59 didn’t even seem like a ques­tion,” Leish­man said.

John­son holed a 40-foot eagle putt on No. 2. He hit dri­ver to 4 feet for eagle on No. 4. The rest of his birdie putts were in range, most­ly from 12 feet or clos­er. And he kept mak­ing them, until the birdies dried up quickly.

John­son missed a 12-foot­er on the 13th and a 10-foot­er on the 17th. And then he failed to make birdie on the last hole, the eas­i­est of the day on the TPC Boston.

A 59 is no longer the record — Furyk shot 58 at the Trav­el­ers Cham­pi­onship in 2016 — but it’s still con­sid­ered golf’s mag­ic num­ber. It was the sec­ond time Schef­fler shot 59 this year. He also had one dur­ing with friends in Dal­las when the tour shut down for three months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

John­son will have to wait.

“I want­ed to shoot 59. I’ve nev­er done it,” he said.

Nev­er?

“Not that I remem­ber,” John­son said, break­ing into a smile before adding, “And I think I’d remem­ber that.”

Mean­while, the FedEx Cup play­offs end­ed ear­ly for some two dozen play­ers who missed the cut and were assured of not mak­ing the top 70 who advance to the BMW Cham­pi­onship next week. That includes Phil Mick­el­son, Justin Rose, Jor­dan Spi­eth and Brooks Koep­ka, who with­drew before the tour­na­ment began.