Johnson finding groove, trails by 1 as playoffs begin
Golf hasn’t felt this easy for Dustin Johnson since he was making it hard for anyone to beat him.
Coming off a week in the Bahamas and switching back to his old putter to rely more on feel, Johnson ran off three birdies over his last six holes Thursday at Glen Oaks Club in Old Westbury, N.Y., and finished with a 5-under-par 65 to trail Russell Henley by one shot after the opening round of the Northern Trust.
Johnson missed only two fairways and two greens, and he finished with a shot up the hill to 4 feet from the hole for one last birdie that gave him his lowest round since he won at Riviera in February to rise to No. 1 in the world.
“Today was much easier than it has been in the past,” Johnson said. “I’ve been saying it’s close, and I’ve seen signs of it. But today was the first day where I felt like all day I was really in control of the swing. Hit a lot of really good shots. Drove it well. Did everything really well. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve done that.”
He specifically used as a reference the weeks leading into the Masters, when Johnson looked nearly unstoppable by winning three straight tournaments. And then he was stopped by a staircase in his rental home at the Masters, slipping in socks and wrenching his back. He had to withdraw from Augusta National the next day, and since then he has been trying to get over the back injury and get back his game.
The Northern Trust, the first of four FedEx Cup playoff events, moved this year to Glen Oaks, a course no one in the field knows particularly well. It is spacious and immaculate, with contoured greens that can be difficult to negotiate outside of close range.
Henley brought a conservative strategy of aiming for the safe part of the greens, and he converted eight birdies. Seven of them were from 12 feet or closer, a testament to how well he was playing. He also chipped in from 80 feet.
“I don’t know what the key is, or the secret,” Henley said. “I just tried to hit the fairway, make sure I hit the green when I was in the fairway, and the greens are great and I rolled in a couple of putts.”
Scott Brown, Camilo Villegas and Chris Kirk were at 66, and it was an important start for Villegas and Kirk. The top 100 in the FedEx Cup after this week advance to the second playoff event at TPC Boston. Kirk is at No. 97, and Villegas is one spot behind. LPGA Tour: Marina Alex shot a 5-under 66 to take the lead in the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open in Ottawa, and Canadian star Brooke Henderson was in danger of missing the cut after a 74.
Alex had four birdies on her opening nine — the back nine at Ottawa Hunt — and added two birdies and a bogey on her second nine. The American is winless on the PGA Tour.
“I got off to a great start,” Alex said. “Then the conditions started to pick up a little bit. The wind picked up. It started to get tough definitely the second nine, so I kind of just held in there the best I could.”
Henderson, from nearby Smiths Falls, struggled on the greens. She had 32 putts. European Tour: Australian Wade Ormsby and Englishmen Matt Wallace and Steve Webster shared the lead at 7-under 64 after the first round of the Made in Denmark tournament in Farso.