As I said in my post two days ago, Dustin Johnson has been knocking on the door many times in trying to win one of the four majors in pro golf. Today, he finally knocked the door down even though for a while, it looked like another bad break might sink his ship again.
Dustin won the 2016 U.S. Open by three strokes, at four under par, on the tough Oakmont Country Club with the very slippery, fast greens and picturesque sand bunkers called Church Pews, all near Pittsburgh, PA.
Little-known Irishman Scot Lowry started today with a large lead of four strokes over the field. He drove the ball excellent all day, but his putter did him in on the closing holes by missing three close putts in a row, on 14, 15, and 16. Until that happened, Lowry and Dustin Johnson kept trading the lead back and forth at between 5 under and 3 under par in the middle of the last and fourth round of the tournament. Johnson, one of the longest hitters in professional golf, was putting on a driving exhibition today and most of the tournament. But then he had another mishap that threatened to derail him again.
Dustin Johnson has had so many chances to win a major, and something would go wrong. The first time it happened was the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2012. He led starting the last round. Then on the par-five second hole, from only a few feet off the green in the rough, he double-hit his little wedge shot and finished with a horrendous eight. That sunk his ship for the day.
The next time was the PGA Championship at Whistling Straights in Wisconsin. He led by one stroke on the last hole. But his drive slightly right was in what he thought was a waste bunker, but was actually a sand bunker where people had walked. That is a strange situation, and waste bunkers with some sand are a rarity in golf anyway. You can ground your club in a waste bunker, but doing so in a sand bunker is a one shot penalty. Dustin grounded his club and hit his shot. A U.S.G.A. official then informed him that he had broken the rule and must be assessed a one shot penalty. Dustin therefore finished the hole one stroke behind and therefore missed being in a sudden death playoff.
Today, it was deja vu. On the twelfth hole, Dustin had a short putt. His habit is to sole his putter very close to the ball and then take one or two practice strokes before hitting the ball. So, this time he soled his putter and took a little practice stroke. Then he did it again. In only perhaps two or three seconds after his second practice stroke he put the putter head behind the ball but still off the ground while holding the putter grip with only his right hand, which is his habit. At that instant, his ball rolled backwards at what appeared to be at least a quarter inch displacement or more. The ball did very noticeably move from its position. And Johnson very noticeably had not put his putter on the surface of the green, but was holding it about a half inch above the green’s surface. As the ball move, he pulled the putter back, and the ball did not hit his putter head.
Dustin then backed away from his position and announced to his playing partner, Lee Westwood, that his ball had moved. And Dustin said that he thought he did not cause the ball to move. The U.S.G.A. rules official who was designated to follow only their group then appeared on the scene. Dustin had a conversation with him, and the official ruled that Dustin had not grounded his club when the ball moved and that therefore he was not to be assessed a penalty of one stroke for causing the ball to move.
Dustin then putted out and proceeded to the next hole. But another U.S.G.A. rules official came alongside Johnson and informed him that while his soling his club with his practice strokes may have caused the ball to afterwards move. The official said that their rules team would review the video of it when Dustin completed his round and would then give the final and official ruling. Thus, Dustin had to play the remainder of his round with the worry that he may be assessed a one stroke penalty and therefore be playing with one more stroke on his scorecard than he thought.
Then the television commentators began discussing this. Paul Azinger was one of them. Paul was an outstanding PGA Tour player, a PGA Championship winner, a guy who beat serious brain cancer, and a crowd favorite throughout his career. In my opinion, Paul Azinger is one of the greatest guys I’ve ever known who played the PGA Tour. Paul, in his diplomatic way, got pretty adamant about constantly talking about this most unfortunate and seemingly unfair situation because we saw him having a talk with the main rules official, and he was giving us viewers and Paul the impression that they were going to assess Dustin a one shot penalty.
This discussion isn’t going to go away for a while. And I think they could change this rule. I will say it has been difficult to decide what the proper rule should be about this situation. That’s the way golf is. No game has so many rulings as golf does. Even many pros hate to read the rule book.
Then the television crew started flashing twitter comments from some of the top names in pro golf who had missed the cut there, such as Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler. They were saying it would be totally unfair to assess Dustin Johnson a penalty for that.
One of the problems was that Oakmont has some severely sloping greens. But that didn’t affect Johnson’s situation, since he was on a pretty flat surface, close to the hole. The problem is that the maintenance crew, directed by U.S.G.A. officials, roll the greens with heavy equipment in order to make the greens very fast. The problem with that is it increases the chances of causing a ball to move while lying still on a green without any wind blowing.
But the Stoic Dustin Johnson–perhaps more so than the unflappable, silent, and legendary Ben Hogan–kept plodding along, working at controlling only what he can control. Thus, he didn’t seem worried about it. And afterwards, he said his attitude was that he couldn’t control it, and he didn’t think he caused the ball to move, so he didn’t think he would be assessed a penalty stroke for it. In other words, he just put it out of his mind. And boy, did he plod along and control his ball! He parred almost all the way to the clubhouse on that very difficult course. Then he hit two great shots to the long par four eighteenth hole, just like he did last year in the U.S. Open where he lost by one stroke for three putting from fifteen feet on the last hole. His high six iron shot this time nestled six feet from the hole. Then he just touched that downhill putt that rolled so beautifully, right into the cup.
Dustin Johnson, what a champ! Through all of his heartbreaks of being so close to winning majors and never getting it done because some crazy, unfortunate thing would happen to him, or he would keep hitting pretty good putts that would constantly roll across the lip of the cup, even this week. Yet he never let any of it get him down so that he embarrassed himself with actions he would later regret. No, Dustin Johnson has been an absolute gentleman in overcoming these bad breaks along his journey, and he’s finally been rewarded for it. That’s Gentleman Golf, folks, as the game should be played.
And it was neat seeing him walk off the last green to the scorer room with his wife and holding his two year old boy on Father’s Day. Much kudos to Dustin Johnson, the 2016 United States Open golf champion.
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