Johnson’s chill gives PGA Tour the shivers
World No. 1 is a quiet giant, which can be as intimidating as his monster tee shots
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.— What Dustin Johnson is doing these days is scary.
Winning, sure. DJ’s romp at the Dell Technologies Match Play event over the weekend gives him three victories in a row on the PGA Tour, and two of those were in elite-field World Golf Championship events.
Improving, too. Johnson finally won a major last season, the U.S. Open at Oakmont, and last month he reached No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings, another first.
Here, though, is where golf’s quiet giant truly separates himself.
He appears to be coasting as he laps the field, not roaring like Tiger Woods did or grinding for every available ounce of precision like Jack Nicklaus. Dustin saunters down the fairway as if on vacation. He reacts to birdies, eagles and double bogeys with less apparent celebration/disgust than the rest of us do when we find/lose the TV remote between the sofa cushions.
That’s the chilliest kind of intimidation: the superstar who seems somewhat bored but because of ridiculous length off the tee and a confident putting stroke can’t help but win.
“It’s amazing how he’s able to keep cool the entire round,” Jon Rahm said Sunday after going 5-down to Johnson in the match-play final and scrambling like crazy just to push it to the 18th hole. “It amazes me. And he’s just a perfect, complete player. Honestly, he doesn’t really make mistakes. I think he’s learned from what he’s done in the past and he’s embracing it now and that’s why he’s winning tournaments.”
Clint Eastwood used to operate a little like this in those old spaghetti westerns. One minute he would be getting a shave at the barber’s or maybe leaning back in a porch chair, hat pulled low over the eyes. The next minute a pistol you didn’t even know he was hiding would flash into the sunlight and clear the street of numerous bad hombres.
There is no explosion with Dustin. He comes at the competition with a calm that Tiger only knew when napping. It is a style that is majestic in its own way.
If he does not feast in this event or that one, other trophies will come. The next one might be the Masters.
Johnson’s first seven visits to Augusta National produced no top-10 finishes and one missed cut. Then came a tie for sixth in 2015 and a tie for fourth last year.
“I keep getting more comfortable on the golf course,” Johnson said of the Masters. “You learn stuff every time you go around there. It’s getting better.”
Johnson already has the experience of scoring eagles on three of Augusta National’s four par-5 holes in one round. That happened in the second round of 2015 Masters, with putts made from 18 feet on No. 2, and 11 feet on No. 8 and 2 feet on No. 15.
Not fair to be driving it so far that middle-iron approach shots produce eagle opportunities like that. On Monday, Johnson withdrew from this week’s Houston Open in order to give himself a break before the Masters. It’s tiring to lead the pack all the time.
Dustin has won six of his last 16 PGA Tour events, including the U.S. Open and two WGC events.
Of course, Tiger has had winning streaks of seven, six and five on the PGA Tour, plus a couple three-in-arows.
If Dustin is scary, and he is, that’s downright terrifying.