Johnson eagles first playoff hole to win LIV Boston event
Dustin Johnson gave LIV Golf its first big moment Sunday when he made a 35-foot eagle putt on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the LIV Golf InvitationalBoston for his first victory in 19 months.
Johnson’s putt on the par-5 18th was going so fast it might have rolled some 6 feet past the hole. But it hit the back of the cup and dropped down near the front of the cup to beat Joaquin Niemann and Anirban Lahiri.
He raised his arm and dropped it for a slowmotion uppercut, instead slapping hands with Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie. The win was worth $4 million for Johnson. With his team winning again, he now has made $9,962,500 in four events.
“It was going a little fast, but it was a good line,” Johnson said with a big smile. “I got some unlucky breaks [on No.
18] the first time around. It owed me one and I got it.”
The first playoff in four LIV Golf events capped an otherwise sloppy finish by so many others who had a chance.
Johnson, who closed with a 5-under 65, needed a birdie on the par-5 18th. His drive bounced into the right rough, his iron to lay up went into the trees well to the left and he had to scramble for par to join Lahiri (64) and Niemann (66) at 15-under 265.
Lahiri hit a fairway metal to 5 feet on the 18th in regulation, and his eagle putt that would have won it rolled around the right edge of the cup.
Lee Westwood finished one shot out of a playoff after a 62 that included bogeys on two of his last three holes. He was poised to win when he bounced back from a bogey on No. 1 in the shotgun start with a short birdie on the par-3 second.
He finished on No. 3, a 352-yard hole and great birdie opportunity. Westwood hit a lob wedge that was so fat it came up some 40 feet short of the pin and into a bunker. He blasted out weakly and missed the 18-foot par putt.
British Open champion Cameron Smith, among six players who recently signed with the Saudifunded league, had a 63. He also was tied for the lead until hitting his tee shot into the trees on No. 1, his 17th hole, and having to pitch out sideways. He made bogey.
Smith tied for fourth with Westwood. Each made just over $1 million.
Johnson had not won since the Saudi International on Feb. 7, 2021, when it was part of the European tour schedule. The player who has been No. 1 longer than anyone since Tiger Woods slipped out of the top 15 in the world when he signed with LIV Golf.
He was part of the rival league from the start in early June outside London, and he has finished in the top 10 in all of them.
“I’ve had a chance to win every one,” he said. “That’s three in a row for the team, and for me to get my first, I’m feeling good.”
LPGA TOUR
Gaby Lopez rallied from four shots behind Sunday and closed with three straight birdies for a 8-under 63 and a one-shot victory in the Dana Open.
Lopez finished her big run with a 12-foot birdie
putt on the par-5 18th at Highland Meadow in Sylvania, Ohio, setting off a series of fist pumps, knowing it would keep her one shot ahead of Megan Khang.
All that was left for the 28-year-old Mexican was to see if anyone could catch her.
No one came particularly close, and Lopez had her third career LPGA Tour victory, and her first since the Tournament of Champions to start the 2020 season.
“I knew I had to make it because Megan was going to make hers,” Lopez said. “I practice exactly for this moment. We got the job done.”
Khang, who shot 29 on the front on a rain-softened course, closed with a 64.
Lucy Li, the 19-yearold Californian who started the final round with a one-shot lead, struggled to make birdies. Her hopes effectively ended when she hit into a fairway bunker on the 16th hole, played well short of the green and missed a 5-foot par putt.
Li birdied the 18th hole for a 70 and tied for fourth. She already has her LPGA Tour card for next season through the Epson Tour. Li tied for ninth in Canada last week to get into the Dana
Open, and now she is eligible to play the LPGA event in Cincinnati next week.
The start of the final round had a feel of a battle of prodigies — Lexi Thompson qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open in 2007 when she was 12, and then Li broke her record in 2014 by qualifying at 11.
They were in the final group, along with Caroline Masson of Germany. In the end, none was really a factor.
Thompson has gone more than three years without winning and she didn’t make a birdie until the final hole. She closed with a 73 and tied for 16th, seven shots behind.
EUROPEAN TOUR
English golfer Oliver Wilson holed two birdie putts from around 65 feet on the back nine to win the Made in HimmerLand event in Farso, Denmark, and end a victory drought of almost eight years on Sunday.
Wilson, ranked No. 745, rolled in the long putts on No. 13 and then on No. 17 to take the outright lead. He held his nerve to par the last hole, hitting his drive off a small mound of turf instead of a tee, to close with a 4-under 67 and finish a shot ahead of Ewen Ferguson of Scotland.
Wilson had not recorded a top-10 finish on the European tour since a tie for fourth in the same event in 2019.