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AUGUSTA, GA – On the biggest Sunday of his golfing life, Dustin Johnson walked up the 18th fairway and turned to his caddy and brother, Austin, and asked a question that will be used against him: How are we doing?
“I told him he had a five-stroke lead,” Austin said later. “I could run it from there. He had no idea.
DJ confirmed it later: he didn’t know what the ranking looked like. He also said he wanted to break the Masters scoring record, but clearly wasn’t sure what the record was: “It was 19 [under] before? ”Nah. It was 18 cents. All of this will fuel those who believe the 2020 Masters champion isn’t that brilliant. In fact, it’s a testament to Dustin Johnson’s quirky genius.
Simon Bruty / Sports Illustrated
That’s what Johnson knew when he clinched at 9:39 Sunday morning: he had a four-stroke lead, and if he played well, he would win. That was it. It was enough. Golf is as complicated as the golfer makes it, and Johnson is a master at figuring out exactly what he needs to know. Rory McIlroy, who played with Johnson in the first two rounds, summed up DJ’s approach as follows: “See the ball, hit the ball, see the putt, the putt hole, move on to the next… he makes the ball. game so simple, or makes it seem so simple sometimes for sure.
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McIlroy has a natural strut. Johnson ambles. He speaks slowly and usually not much. Austin Johnson said on Sunday: “He doesn’t throw batons or curse me or do any of that.” People mistake this for indifference, but in fact he desperately cares. Brooks Koepka says majors are easier to win because he knows other players are going to get nervous and fight; Koepka has convinced himself that he is never nervous. Johnson admitted on Sunday: “I was nervous all day.” He thought the nerves would go away upon entering his round, but they never did.
He dodged the pilot for three woods on the first tee and found a fairway bunker anyway. He hit his drive on the second par-5 hole in the rough right. Then he needed a break in the toilet – on the second hole. It is never a good sign. He hit a low three wood before the bunker on the greenside, and even though he was in the fairway, he didn’t like his lie – the ball was “sitting a bit, and it was a little sticky there” . Austin said, and Dustin tried to hit a perfect shot and he blew it up in the bunker. He did normal, but this shot was alarming.
He hit his tee shot on the fourth par-3 fat, left it off the green and bogeyed.
He hit his drive on the fifth par 4 hole in the fairway bunker, had to fall into place and made another bogey.
As he stood on the 6th tee, with the pin on a right back shelf, do you know what he did do not need?
To look at a ranking, what is it.
He was quite nervous and he knew it. He just needed a good shot. He hit a good shot, birdieed No.6 and really didn’t get a bad shot again. He played back par-5s, No. 13 and 15, conservatively, but still birdied. He said afterwards: “I knew if I was playing well, especially [No.] 8 at home, that I was going to put myself in a good position and have a chance to win. I just didn’t want to [the leaderboard] to affect the way I played. I just haven’t watched it. I took what the class gave me and hit the punches that I felt I could hit.
All the while, Austin kept looking at the leaderboards. He said the tour “was really scary for me.” Austin knew not to tell Dustin what the other players were doing. Dustin knew if he really needed to know – if someone in another group had been shooting his whole life and Dustin needed to birdies – Austin would tell him. And so he was free to play golf.
Austin is not one of those revered cadet scholars; he’s recently marveled at Dustin’s ability to hit a good shot even when Austin gives him the wrong meter, which isn’t the sort of thing most caddies would say. But Austin is the right caddy for Dustin. He helps his brother find the right mental place.
And so when Dustin says he didn’t know where he was, what he means is, “Not exactly. I mean, I assumed I had the head, but I didn’t know by how much. He knew that if he pulled two cents or better, he would almost certainly win. He knew he was between four and 17 years old. When Austin said he was five strokes ahead, DJ replied, “I think I can handle this one.” He knew what to do next: see the ball, hit the ball, see the putt, let the putt short, pierce the tap-in. He finished 20 under, five strokes ahead of Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith.
Dustin Johnson reacts with his junior and brother Austin Johnson after winning the Masters.
Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
Austin wiped away his tears four times. Dustin didn’t. He threw a half punch and acted like he had just shot 66 in the second round of the Houston Open. It wasn’t until later, when CBS’s Amanda Balionis asked what it meant to win the green jacket, that he started losing it.
Dustin and Austin both talked about being kids, how every putt on the practice green at night was to win the Masters. Dustin did it because he didn’t surround this dream with mess.
Johnson experimented with a 47in longer driver leading up to the Masters, but he thought he would miss too many fairways so he never used it. He asks Austin for the footage and helps him read the putts, and not much else. He is neither too fiery nor too downcast.
Austin said, “You can’t tell if we’re going down in a major’s line or if we’re lying on the couch watching football by their reactions. He seemed really focused this morning. He had his mind set on what he wanted to do, and it didn’t seem like anything was going to stop him from doing it.
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Johnson is so talented that no matter how he does it always seems like he should be doing more. He has now won two majors and could easily have won five. But it’s really hard to win two, and it takes a lot more than talent.
“His golf IQ is out of this world,” said his swing trainer, Claude Harmon. “I think we saw it today. I think maybe four, five, six years ago, he’s upset by what happened in the beginning. I think it’s been very interesting in that all this talk about ‘We’re going to have to change the ball’ and Bryson [DeChambeau] rewrite golf, DJ did exactly what Tiger did [Woods] did at the time: “Let me hit a bunch of fairways. I am already as long as everyone else. If you watch Tiger’s run in 2000, 2001, he wasn’t trying to hit everyone. DJ certainly isn’t trying to hit people. He’s just trying to give himself so many chances.
Nineteen months ago, Woods won his fifth Masters title, triggering perhaps the loudest celebration in Augusta National history. This year, without a ticket due to COVID-19, Johnson won in front of dozens of people, at least three of whom knew how to wear a mask correctly. The subdued atmosphere was appropriate. Johnson doesn’t really like attention.
Johnson recently had COVID-19 himself and he said two weeks of quarantine in a hotel room was no time to prepare for a major. But Johnson still feels good about his game. Harmon said nothing about Johnson’s game worried him this week.
McIlroy arrived in Augusta as well determined to win; he shot 75 points in the first round, nullifying his performance of 11 under the rest of the time. McIlroy is a wonderful player and four-time major champion, but in Augusta he struggles to do what Johnson did: see the ball, hit the ball, see putt, putt hole. There is no mention of the green jacket. No way to celebrate. Easy.
“It’s something to admire all the time,” McIlroy said Friday. “I think he has one of the best attitudes towards golf in the history of the game.”
Johnson is a pleasant but reluctant public speaker; he spent all those years dreaming of a Masters victory, not the Masters winner’s press conference. When asked to say which clubs he hit on each hole, he looked at a screen with his scorecard on it, and he started going hole by hole. But then the screen changed. He looked like he really needed it – like he didn’t even know, after all these years, which hole 14 was and which was 17. But it’s still a caricature. Of course, he remembered every stroke. He just loved looking at his scorecard like he said it for the same reason he loved having Austin on his bag: it’s heartwarming.
After Woods put a 42-long green jacket over Johnson’s shoulders, the two champions marched from Butler Cabin to the practice green for the traditional trophy ceremony. Austin Johnson took out his camera and began filming the best golfer of his life and his brother, both in green jackets. This is where Dustin Johnson is now, and where he always will be.
Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
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