Page 15 - Golf Champion - DEcember 2020

TRUST and TOUR Championship to
take the FedExCup.
There are no guarantees at Augusta,
or anywhere. At the 2017 World Golf
Championships-HSBC Champions,
Johnson shot 77 and became the
second player in TOUR history to
lose a six-shot 54-hole lead. He
won the Sentry Tournament of
Champions in his next start, five
weeks later. Johnson is like the
metal man in “Terminator 2” who
keeps moving ever forward even
as he keeps getting holes blown
through him. He forgets quickly.
Dustin Jonson
He’s a fast healer.
This was Johnson’s second major
(2016 U.S. Open) and 24th TOUR
speak in a post-round interview closing them out when he had at
win. He pulls even with Woods
with CBS’s Amanda Balionis. “… least a share of the 54-hole lead –
for most consecutive seasons with
There were doubts in my mind, the gum on his shoe since the 2010
a win to start a career with 14,
just because I had been there. I'm U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when
and moves from 17th to first in
in this position a lot of times. Like he lost his three-shot lead with a
the FedExCup, which is where he
when am I going to have the lead second-hole triple bogey, shot 82,
ended last season. We are seeing
and finish off the golf tournament and finished T8.
the peak years of perhaps the most
or finish off a major? For me, it He just keeps on giving himself
gifted golfer of his generation;
definitely proved that I can do it.” chances. The Masters marked the
Johnson’s best may be better than
The day featured only fleeting fifth time in his last seven TOUR
anyone else’s.
suspense. Im cut the lead to one starts that Johnson had held the 54-
His clubs have never spoken so
after Johnson made back-to-back hole lead/co-lead, a run in which
loudly.
bogeys, but Johnson restored order he’d already won THE NORTHERN
at the par-3 sixth, converting a
short birdie putt. Smith made
things interesting with a front-nine
33, including wild birdies at Nos.
7 and 9, but Johnson was always
going to have to come back to the
chase pack, and instead went the
other way.
By the time Smith, marching up the
15th fairway, looked back and saw
that it was Johnson who was close
to the pin on the 14th green, it was
all but over. Smith frowned and
looked down at the grass, Johnson
made the six-foot putt, and the lead
was five strokes with four holes
remaining.
All anyone wanted to talk about
Sungjae Im
at Augusta was his 0-for-4 record

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