RIO DE JANEIRO -- The 63 came pretty much out of nowhere. Stacy Lewis has been muddling through a so-so year on the LPGA Tour, contending but not winning.
She got married recently, which made her preparations -- and expectations -- for the Olympic golf tournament somewhat limited.
When she walked off the driving range Thursday morning, she was annoyed with herself because she could not get her swing dialed in.
But something worked as she traversed the Olympic Golf Course.
Lewis shot an 8-under-par 63 in the second round of the Olympic women's golf competition Thursday, including a double-bogey, to surge up the leaderboard. She is 1 stroke behind South Korea's Inbee Park through 36 holes.
"I don't know if something seemed to click and I got some more confidence as the day went on,'' said Lewis, who is a shot ahead of Great Britain's Charley Hull and Canada's Brooke Henderson. "I think the putts going in definitely helped. Anytime you see some putts go in, it frees up the swing a little bit more. But I don't know ... I didn't expect this today at all.''
Lewis, who is one of three Americans in the Olympic field, along with Lexi Thompson and Gerina Piller, took a carefree attitude coming into the Olympics. Lewis knew she had played well in her past four starts -- all top-10s. She figured that she wasn't going to sweat it after getting married on Aug. 6.
After a brief honeymoon in Charleston, South Carolina, Lewis got back to work, but still thought she would enjoy the experience of being here more than worry about grinding at golf.
"I was excited from the get-go with the announcement of the Olympics,'' Lewis said. "There are probably a lot of reasons why we shouldn't have come and shouldn't have done this, whether it was Zika or other issues.
"I just did my homework, and nobody gave me a good reason why I shouldn't come. I mean, there'd have to be something seriously wrong with me to not come play in the Olympics. This has been so cool. Just a different feel about it. Feels like a different tournament.
"I'm truthfully more excited about the diving I get to go watch this afternoon than the round I played. I'm looking forward to doing all this other stuff versus the golf, and that's what this week is about for us.''
So far, it is paying off for Lewis, 31, who made 11 birdies, a double-bogey and a bogey on Thursday. She birdied the last four holes to take the clubhouse lead before Park birdied the last two holes to post a two-day total of 10 under.
An 11-time winner on the LPGA Tour, including two major championships, Lewis has gone 18 months without a victory.
But during that span she has had 11 runner-up finishes and 27 top-10s, including those four events coming into this week.
"The first half of the year wasn't very good,'' she said. "Wasn't in contention very much. The swing, the putting, nothing was where I wanted it to be. Actually, on my way to Portland (for a tournament in late June), I pulled out DVDs of a couple of my old wins, and just was trying to see what is different. Something has to be different here. Saw one thing in the setup of my putting, and that was kind of the big thing was the setup of my putting. Got my hands a little bit further away from me.
"But also saw that I hit a lot of bad shots and won golf tournaments. I don't know what it was, but just watching those videos really helped me, helped me start playing better. And really, from Portland on, I've played some really good golf. The last four weeks, I think I've had four top-10s. So the golf is going in the right direction, and that's when I win -- it's usually after some top-10s. And so I know I just need to keep grinding out and keep trying to play some good golf.''
Now she's in a great spot, with the chance at a medal, perhaps even gold, in her sights. And keeping expectations at a minimum might not be so easy.