Dustin did hold aloft a trophy at the US Open

second. This 30-year-old “bad boy of golf ” is no stranger to turbulent times. Last year saw the American bust for cocaine, just like he was in 2012. This latest charge got him banned for six months although the limp-fisted PGA Tour were reluctant to use the word “ban”, preferring to explain away his non-appearance on tour by saying he was taking “leave of absence” for “personal reasons”.

Also last year, the story broke that Johnson had affairs with two wives of PGA Tour players. Remark- ably, he then proposed marriage to socialite Paulina Gretzky, daughter of ice-hockey legend Wayne Gretzy, who warned the golfer that only if he cleaned up his act could he have his daughter’s hand. The couple are now married and have a baby boy.

There have been denials. Johnson claimed he never had a cocaine problem, only one with “excessive drinking” and said he managed to “cut down” in his six months out.

He reckons the time on the sidelines matured him to the point where “kids can now look up to me.” Drugs and womanising aside, Johnson as a 16-year-old was involved in a burglary in which a gun was stolen.

Dustin was later bullied into using a fake ID to buy bullets for the gun by a friend’s menacing older brother Steve Gillian.

Later that month Gillian was charged with murder after shooting a man multiple times in the head.

Gillian was convicted of the crime and received a life sentence. Johnson had to pay restitution for the burglary and had to testify at the trial, before being pardoned.

So Johnson’s life so far hasn’t exactly been without controversy.

Why he should make wrong choices isn’t clear although no one can deny his golfing talent. He won eight times on the PGA Tour before the ban and when he came back on tour in February this year, he lost in a play-off to James Hahn in the Northern Trust Open that same month, before winning the WGC- Cadillac Championship in March.

And now, last Sunday, he very nearly did win the US Open. Not surprisingly, he expressed his profound disappointment at not collecting his first Major, as was the case in 2010 when he blew a three-shot lead in the US Open final round at Pebble Beach with an 82, and then that same year – in the PGA at Whistling Straits – a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a sandy area (which he didn’t realise was a bunker) saw him miss out on