The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
World No. 1 eyes new heights
Johnson again will drive for show in 7,800-feet altitude.
MEXICO intriguing ico air Chapultepec Championship and the CITY aspects long — Golf One ball. of is the the Club of Mex- thin the is approaching sea est altitude level, making most 7,800 of it feet the the above high- players pionships in this World event Golf will Cham- see all year. The Joburg Open was close to 6,000 feet above sea level. The Barracuda Cham- pionship about But that’s the in same. not Reno, what Nev., wins is the tournament. Just ask the defending champion.
Dustin Johnson still smiles at one of the best shots he hit all year — a sand wedge. His lead was down to one shot when Tommy Fleetwood made birdie on the 18th hole, and Johnson tugged his tee shot into a wicked spot in the bunker.
“The ball was below my feet. It was not sitting great,” Johnson said. “And I didn’t really have anywhere to miss it coming out of where I was. It was either hit a good shot or I was probably going into a playoff.”
He hit one of the most underappreciated shots of the year to about 20 feet for a two-putt par and a one- shot victory. It was his fifth World Golf Championships title in his first start at No. 1 in the world, a position he has kept all year.
Justin Thomas was playing in the final group and remembers it well.
“Hands down,” he said when asked if it was one of the better shots of the tournament.
Thomas revised his assessment a few minutes later, only because he thought his 6-iron for a hole-in-one on the 223-yard 13th hole in the third round was pretty good. Even though a hole-in- one typically is a case where the hole gets in the way? “That’s where I was aim- ing,” Thomas said.
Back to Johnson’s shot.
“I was in the fairway and saw Tommy make birdie on 18,” Thomas said. “There’s a tree on the left that was in his way. The ball was below his feet, and there’s quite a bit of sand in those bunkers. He had to catch it perfectly.” And he did.
“We were walking to the green and converged about 20 yards short and I just looked at him,” Thomas said, raising his eyebrows. “He said, ‘I don’t want that one back.’”
One of Johnson’s biggest highlights this year was the drive he hit 432 yards, 6 inches on the 433-yard 12th hole at Kapalua, which he won by eight shots. In that case, the hole really was cut 6 inches from where his ball stopped rolling. It was a great shot to be anywhere on the green, and it was symbolic of Johnson’s power.
But there’s more to his game. And there’s a lot more to playing Chapultepec.
Jordan Spieth, whose 63 was the low round of the tournament last year, wasn’t in the final group and didn’t see the shot until it was shown on TVs around the club this week. He thought it was a reasonable exam- ple of how thin air and outrageous distances make for nice tales, but not necessarily trophies.
“There’s only a couple of holes where it makes that much of a difference,” Spieth said. “Length really doesn’t matter out here. What D J did was control his distance and wedge play. If he’s doing that and really putting hard to well, beat.” then he’s
Spieth didn’t decide until last week to enter the Mexico Championship as he tries to find the right path to the Masters. He was slowed sig- nificantly by mononucleosis in December, restricting his preparations for a new year to just four hours of practice. But he felt good enough to play, and he feels like he’s hitting his stride.
The field is 65 players after three players chose not to play, mainly for scheduling purposes — Henrik Stenson, Jason Day and Rory McIl- roy. Hideki Matsuyama and U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka are out with injuries.
That means Johnson is virtually certain to stay No. 1 in the world. He is only the fifth player to stay No. 1 for an entire year since the ranking began in 1986.
“Had to put in a lot of hard work,” he said. And hit a lot of good shots, with more than just the driver.