DJ controls destiny
Shares lead with Chappell
TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP
ATLANTA — Dustin Johnson had a reasonable lie in the rough and only a few pine tree branches blocking his path to the 17th green. Neither seemed like a problem until he played the wrong shot, clipped the tree and wound up with a double bogey yesterday at the Tour Championship.
It was an example of how one hole can change everything at East Lake.
And it’s why the final round of the PGA Tour season suddenly has more scenarios than Johnson cares to consider.
Johnson recovered with a birdie from the bunker on the par-5 18th for a 1-underpar 69, giving him a share of the lead with Kevin Chappell (68) going into the last round that will determine who wins the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.
For the first time since 2009, there’s a chance it might not be the same player.
“There’s a lot of scenarios that could happen,” Johnson said. “But yeah, I’m still going to go out and try to shoot as low a score as possible.”
Johnson only has to win or finish second alone to claim the $10 million bonus as the FedEx Cup champ.
Rory McIlroy, who has gone 28 holes without a bogey at East Lake, had three birdies in his last six holes for a 66 and was 2 shots behind. If he wins the tournament and Johnson finished in a two-way tie for second or worse, McIlroy would claim the FedEx Cup.
“It would just be great to try to win the Tour Championship, and if the chips fall my way, then so be it,” McIlroy said.
The winner of the Tour Championship has won the FedEx Cup every year since 2009, when Phil Mickelson won the tournament and Tiger Woods won the FedEx Cup.
Johnson led by as many as 4 shots when he ran off three straight birdies on the front nine, and he really didn’t do much wrong to give up the size of that lead. He had a 3-putt from 70 feet on No. 13 and missed the fairway by a few feet on the next hole, enough that his ball was buried so deep even Johnson and his power couldn’t advance it more than about 135 yards.
It was the 17th hole that reshaped the tournament.
Johnson tried to play a fade from a flyer lie in the rough, and the ball came out high and hit a branch, leaving him in more rough about 60 yards short of the green. He put that in the bunker, blasted out to 6 feet and missed the putt to make double bogey.
Chappell rolled in a 10foot birdie putt for a 3-shot swing on the hole and suddenly had the lead, only for Johnson to catch him with the final birdie. They are at 8-under 202. Chappell, a runner-up three times this season who has never won on the PGA Tour, has made only one bogey in 54 holes this week, a show of consistency. His next chance at a breakthrough victory is to face golf’s best player at the moment (Johnson), with McIlroy and Ryan Moore (66) 2 shots behind.
“I’ve always kind of been the underdog, so it’s a role I’m comfortable in,” Chappell said.
Moore went out in 31 until he was slowed by a pair of bogeys, though very much in the mix just 2 shots out of the lead. The mystery is whether anything he does today — even if that means a victory — is enough for Davis Love III to use his last captain’s pick on Moore for the Ryder Cup.
“I came here this week to win a golf tournament, and I’m 100 percent focused on that,” Moore said.
He added that the Ryder Cup is “completely out of my control.”