Johnson on a roll with third successive title
austin — Dustin Johnson has been around long enough to realise he’s not going to win every golf tournament he plays.
It’s just getting harder to find a candidate to stop him.
Zach Johnson advanced out of his group in the Dell Technologies Match Play and faced Dustin Johnson, whom he referred to not only as the best player in the world, but “probably playing as good as anybody has ever played in the last month.”
That was high praise, and Dustin Johnson keeps backing it up.
In the longest week of the year — seven matches over five days — and one of the toughest tournaments to win because Match Play is so unpredictable, Johnson delivered the outcome everyone expected late on Sunday at Austin Country Club.
The final act was to hold off a remarkable charge by Jon Rahm, a 22-year-old Spanish rookie who never saw a shot that scared him. Rahm took Johnson to the 18th hole and needed a birdie to force overtime, only for the bathroom door of a portable toilet to slam right as he was hitting a delicate chip. It came up short, leaving an impossible birdie putt, and Johnson emerged with a 1-up victory.
That makes three straight victories for Johnson against the toughest fields of the year.
Johnson won in the rain at Riviera, where he was on pace to shatter the tournament scoring record until he eased back the throttle and settled for a five-shot victory. He won in 7,800 feet of altitude in Mexico City, and then he saved his best work for perhaps the toughest tournament to win.
Even though he was taken the distance twice on Sunday — a 1-up victory over Hideto Tanihara in the semifinals and a 1-up victory over Rahm in the final match — there was no denying the dominance of Johnson. —
It’s amazing how he’s able to keep cool the entire round. It amazes me. And he’s just a perfect, complete player Jon Rahm, speaking about Johnson