SOUTHAMPTON, NY – At 1:30 on Friday afternoon, Dustin Johnson signed a golf ball, handed it to the crazed teenager, then promptly stopped short of the steps leading up to the grand facility. Shinnecock Hills the club.
It summed up his day well.
Johnson, the two-time major champion, shot a 41 on the back nine on Friday, which included a quadruple-bogey 8 on the par-4 15th. It was the exclamation point in an eight-hole, five-hole stretch that saw him go from one lead to 11 back.
He shot 77, but thanks to his 66 Thursday, he’s still in the bottom three and will play the weekend. Wyndham Clark leads by seven under, but Johnson is just six second (three under) and much can change with half of the US Open left to play, especially at Shinnecock Hills.
But if you only look at the number 77 next to Johnson’s name, you’re not getting the full picture. Through 28 holes he was just one off the lead, a surprising surge up the leaderboard that we haven’t seen in years from one of the best players of this generation. And the weird part? DJ said he didn’t really play that bad friday
“I still feel like I’m doing well,” Johnson said. “I hit good shots … but it’s tough. The wind was moving all over the place today. It was hard to get a good bead on it. To swing really well and roll it well.”
Johnson went to LIV Golf in 2022 and has not recorded a top 20 in his last 11 starts which includes three missed cuts last season. Some want to blame LIV Golf for Johnson’s slide, but the reality is that he also turns 42 on Monday. Nobody’s brilliance can last forever.
He played well here the last time the Open was at Shinnecock, in 2018, when he held at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds, but ultimately finished two shots behind winner Brooks Koepka.
Johnson started the week with a late nine-minute time on Thursday and made the turn at even par before riding four in a row on Nos. 1-4. He made a sloppy two-putt on the 6th and then holed his putt on the 7th green after play was suspended due to darkness. He woke up Friday morning, drained the 4-footer for birdie and closed out his round with par-birdies on the 8th and 9th to sign for a 66.
Johnson was even for his second round through 10 holes – just one shot behind partner and leader Clark – but the wheels came off soon after. He double-bogeyed 11 and bogeyed 12 and 13, though he said he didn’t feel like he hit any bad shots on 11 or 13. The real trouble came on 15, where a drive into the green led to an approach into the bunker. He needed three shots to escape the sand – and ran into rocky trouble.
“I actually hit it where I wanted to,” Johnson said. “If I didn’t get it on the green, I found the front right bunker was the easiest place to par. I hit a rock that came out and it shot straight left (into the next bunker). Then the next one hit a rock and it went soft (and back into the bunker).
He chipped in and two-putted. On the 16th, he was 11 years behind Clark. Johnson turned 16 and split the last two.
While Johnson failed to crack the top 10 in his first seven LIV starts of the year, he finished fifth and fourth, respectively, in his last two. He said he loosened the loft of his irons before a recent tour — typically a DJ, he couldn’t remember which — and started playing better.
“I drove it well,” he said. “The game feels really good. Obviously, even with 10 holes, I was par today. I understand if I hit terrible shots, but I really didn’t hit a bad shot.”
This is the last year of Johnson’s 10-year exemption for winning the 2016 US Open, and he is currently not ranked high enough to be invited next season. At the end of his little skirmish with reporters on Friday, he was asked if he planned to skip qualifying next year.
“That’s a long time away,” he said.
He still has 36 holes left this week.
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