Dustin is close to perfection
In A series of fitness videos for the Golf Channel website in America, Dustin Johnson swims like Michael Phelps, dunks like an Nba hotshot and gets into stretching positions that would please a top gymnast.
needless to say, he’s not bad at golf, either.
On Sunday, after collecting his sixth title in his last 17 PGA Tour starts at the WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, the 32-year-old American drew the ultimate accolade from Jon Rahm, the young Spaniard he beat in a classic final.
‘He is the perfect, complete golfer,’ he said.
There will never be one of those but you can certainly see why a 22-year-old would look at the all-round package Johnson brings and feel a sense of awe. Johnson is heading to the Masters at Augusta as perhaps the nearest example we have seen to the perfect golfer since the heyday of Tiger Woods.
He is certainly the complete athlete. In the evolutionary development of golf into an athletic pursuit that began with Gary Player, continued with Sir nick Faldo and moved on to Tiger, Johnson has raised the bar another notch.
As Rahm’s comment indicates, he’s acquiring that aura every top golfer craves, the one that gives him a vital mental edge over his peers.
It’s well earned. In recent years we have seen players like Jason Day and Martin Kaymer become stressed out wearing the mantle of world no 1 but for Johnson it’s looking like the final piece of the puzzle. Since reaching his victory in the Genesis Open last month, he has played in two events featuring virtually all the world’s best players and won them both.
There was a time when the American played the game as if all that mattered was the ego boost of hitting it further than anyone else, but being no 1 has given him all the bragging rights he needs.
The 13th hole last week was a short par four with a carry of 313 yards over water if any player wanted to take on the challenge of driving the green.
Johnson, who could have made it with ease, didn’t give it a go in any of his seven matches. He thought he had more chance of a birdie hitting a wedge shot approach than trying to chip close from all the awkward mounds around the green. Whoever thought Johnson, of all people, would start thinking as smartly as that? Such little things are adding up to equal a domination over his peers in his last three events that suggests he’s quite capable of a Tiger-like season.
‘I still think there’s plenty of room for improvement and I’m going to keep trying hard to get better and stay ahead,’ he said. ‘I like being the no 1 player in the world.’
The big question is: can he keep it going? After all, Day was on a similar run last year and never came close to winning at Augusta.
Johnson’s wedge play used to be relatively poor, which explains why he struggled at the Masters for a number of years. But here’s another area where he has improved out of all recognition, and he’s finished tied sixth and tied fourth in his last two appearances.
There’s plenty of reasons why he won’t win, of course. The margins are so fine, you only need to be slightly off your game to struggle. He’ll need to have a good week on the greens and that’s far from a given.
So no, he’s not the perfect, complete golfer. But he is playing complete golf and will deservedly swagger into Augusta as the man to beat.