Twice as hard to be a champ
Johnson beats Spieth in playoff at Northern Trust
NEW YORK: For a guy who can make golf look easy, Dustin Johnson can’t remember a victory more difficult.
He was five shots behind Jordan Spieth through five holes of the final round at the Northern Trust. He caught up to him in five holes, setting up a classic duel between two of the biggest names in golf that came down to the very end at Glen Oaks Club.
And then it became hard again for Johnson.
He turned away in disgust when his tee shot on the 18th hole peeled away to the right, up a slope and into thick grass. Johnson couldn’t figure out how to get it out of a nasty lie to an elevated green guarded by two deep bunkers, so he sur- prised even Spieth by laying up and trusting his wedge game. Only when he climbed the hill and saw his ball 18 feet from the hole –_ Johnson thought it would be closer – did he wonder if this wouldn’t be his day.
“I knew I was going to have to make it when I walked up there,” Johnson said.
“I thought I hit a better shot than that. I thought my par putt was going to be much closer. It ended up being the right distance, I guess. I mean, it went in.”
That was the moment when Johnson did to Spieth what Spieth seems to do to everybody. He made a big putt.
The ball swirled into the back of the cup, and they were headed for a sudden-death playoff, a bonus hole for the fans who were treated to a great show in the FedEx Cup playoff opener that starts the chase for the US$10mil (RM43mil) prize.
And that allowed Johnson to make good on a pledge.
Walking off the 18th tee in regulation, he had told Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie, that if he could get into a playoff, he would take on the water down the left side of the 18th fairway instead of playing a more conservative shot out to the right.
By the time they got to the 18th tee for the playoff, the wind had switched.
“I was hoping he was not going to notice that,” Spieth said with a smile.
No such luck, and it might not have mattered. Johnson smashed his drive so far that it cleared the entire lake and settled in the far end of the fairway 341 yards away.
“At that point,” Spieth said, “I have to try and make par best I can, and I’m just hoping. I’m at such a disadvantage.”
“That was the first time that I really had to work hard for my win,” he said.
In his 16 victories on the PGA Tour, only one other time had he made a birdie on the final hole to win by one shot. That was at Pebble Beach in 2010 when a simple birdie from the bunker on the par-5 18th gave him a one-shot victory over David Duval and J.B. Holmes.
In that respect, it felt great.