For Dustin Johnson, a Masters of success and tears

By Art Spander

It seemed more coronation than competition. Sure, there were a few moments of doubt early on, but when it was finished there was Dustin Johnson, fighting back tears and wearing a green jacket.

Johnson had both realized a dream and broken records, taking the Masters by a figurative mile and fulfilling the promise of greatness that had been forecast but, for so long, remained more curse than blessing.

When he putted out Sunday at the final hole of the first November Masters, Johnson had a 4-under 68, an unimaginable total of 20-under-par 268 — two shots lower than the winning marks shared by Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth — and a five-shot victory, the largest margin since Tiger’s triumph in 1997.

And when CBS’ Amanda Balionis, on a green near the Augusta National clubhouse — alone because of pandemic restrictions — asked Johnson what the win meant, he reached up to wipe his eyes and then paused several times to gather himself.

“On the golf course, I’m pretty good at it,” he said about controlling emotions. “Out here, I’m not. As a kid I dreamed about winning the Masters.”

He is the son of a golf pro and grew up in South Carolina, a couple hours away from Augusta.

“It’s been the tournament I wanted to win most,” he said.

Now he’s won it, a second major along with the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont — a poignant answer to those who belittled his golfing intelligence, who emphasized his failing instead of his success. And since he’s No. 1 in the world rankings, he’s had a considerable amount of success.

He has 27 wins and was PGA Tour Player of the Year in 2016 and 2020. At 36, Johnson is both young and experienced. He survived disappointment and criticism — blowing that lead in the last round of the 2002 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach made him wiser stronger.

“He’s been knocking at the door so long,” said Rory McIlroy of Johnson. “I think this validates what he did at Oakmont.”

McIlroy also has been knocking on the Masters door. It’s the only one of the four Grand Slam tournaments Rory hasn’t won. He was nine shots behind Johnson this time.

Asked about Johnson’s devil-may-care image, McIlroy said, “He’s smarter than you think. He’s switched on more than everyone in the media thinks. I’ll just put it that way.”

The fourth day of this unique Masters, one without paying spectators — patrons, they’re called by the club — one in autumn rather than April, began with in morning in order to finish before afternoon NFL games.

Johnson was four shots ahead at tee-off, but that margin was trimmed to one after he bogied four and five.  It quickly was restored. Johnson birdied six and went on his way.

Cameron Smith of Australia, who shot 69 and became the first player in the tournament’s 84 years with all four rounds in the 60s, and Sungjae Im of Korea tied for second at 273, 15-under.

“I was actually saying before, you know, I'd take 15‑under around here the rest of my career and I might win a couple,” said Smith. “So yeah, that’s just the way it is.”

Because Johnson was just the way he was — and the course, after that heavy rain Thursday morning just when play began, was just the way it was. Brooks Koepka, winner twice of the U.S. Open and twice of the PGA, said the turf was to Johnson’s liking.

“The course suited him down to the ground,” said Koepka, who tied for seventh. “He’s more of a picker of the ball. He doesn’t spin it that much with his irons. The ball’s not going to be backing up.

“He’s been on a tear since the Travelers (in June, after the Tour restarted). It almost feels like it’s coming, and it was this week.”

Said Johnson, alluding to the virus pandemic and tournaments without fans and thus without cheers, “It has been a really strange year, but it’s been really good to me.”

You might say it was a masterful year.

Dustin should win — but in golf, nothing is certain

By Art Spander

He is four shots ahead with only a single round remaining, the world No. 1 playing like the world No. 1, loaded with confidence on a course that suits his game, breaking par and practically breaking records.

There’s only one reason that Dustin Johnson wouldn’t win this Masters. It’s called golf, and in golf nothing is certain.

Golf is a game in which you don’t have control over your opponents, and sometimes not over yourself.

A game where a one-foot putt and a 300-yard drive each count the same number of strokes. A game where you can lose a lead before you tee off.

A game where there’s no relief pitcher or backup quarterback when things go bad.

Dustin knows all about the agony of golf. He tossed away a three-shot advantage in the final round of the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, shooting 82.

He three-putted the 72 hole of the 2015 Open at Chambers Bay.

He also knows all about the ecstasy. He won the 2016 Open at Oakmont and this year everything else on the pandemic-shortened Tour schedule.

Johnson, yes, ought to take this tournament. On Saturday, he became the first in 84 years to shoot a second round of 65 in the same Masters, and his 65-70-65—200, 16 under par, ties the all-time low for 54 holes at the tournament set by Jordan Spieth.

Still, golf can be chilling. In 2011, Rory McIlroy also had a four-shot margin at the Masters and shot 80 the final day.

And only three months ago, Johnson held the lead in the PGA Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco, albeit by one stroke, and came in tied for second, a shot behind Collin Morikawa.

Yet everything seems perfect for Johnson, including the fairways and greens, soft from the big rain on Thursday morning.

“If I can play like I did today,” said Johnson, referring to his missed chances of the past, “I think it would break the streak. (Sunday) is just 18 holes of golf. I need to go out and play solid. I feel like I’m swinging well. If I can just continue to give myself looks at birdies, I think I’ll have a good day.”

He’s on a roll, which seems the proper word at Augusta National, where the hills and swales have an effect, where big hitters such as Johnson always have had an edge. On Saturday he reached the downhill 575-yard 2^nd hole with a 5-iron and made the putt for an eagle 3.

His only mistake of the round was at 18, and, of course, he saved par. On the Golf Channel, Brandel Chamblee compared it to a pitcher losing a perfect game with two outs in the ninth, but it was not that fateful.

So much has been written about the power and length of Bryson DeChambeau. Dustin Johnson is a less bulked-up DeChambeau, muscular and effective. DeChambeau, by the way, came out on Saturday, played nine and made the cut after being forced to stop on Friday because of darkness.

Self-belief is a necessity in golf. When you know you’ll hit the way you want, you do just that.

“Coming off a good finish” at Houston, the previous week, Johnson said on Tuesday, “Got a lot of confidence in the game ... As long as the game stays in good form, I think I’m hopefully going to be around here Sunday and have a chance to win.”

He’s got a chance, an excellent chance.

On Saturday, after three rounds and that big lead, Johnson was no less enthusiastic.

“I would say the game is in really good form,” said Johnson. “It’s just very consistent. I feel like I’ve got a lot of control over what I’m doing, controlling my distance well with my flight and my shape. I’m very comfortable standing over the golf ball, and obviously that’s a really good feeling.”

He just needs to hold on to that feeling. In golf, it can disappear as rapidly as a ball into a water hazard, and there are plenty of those the back nine at the Masters.

Cantlay is back as a contender at the Masters

By Art Spander

The same guys seem to play well there every year. Patrick Cantlay said it about the Masters. He meant people like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.

He could have included someone else: himself.

Cantlay briefly was in the final-round lead a year ago after an eagle at the 15^th. A couple of bogies and that celebrated win by Tiger all but chased him out of our memories.

Now, two rounds into this ’20 Masters, Cantlay’s back, and very much so.

The leaders, four people including Johnson, Justin Thomas — two of the same guys — Abraham Ancer and Cameron Smith (who are new guys), were tied for the temporary 36-hole lead at 9-under-par 135. Temporary because the second round wasn’t concluded.

Cantlay, whose 66 shared Friday’s low round, was a shot behind for 36 holes, at 136. He needed nine holes Friday morning to complete the first round that was unfinished Thursday, and then he played another 18. Phew.

“Today was a long day,” he said, as if one that began on the course at 7:30 a.m. and ended in late afternoon could be anything else.

It also was a successful day, if a bit nerve-wracking. The first time around, his second shot to the 15^th landed on the crest of a slope and trickled into the water.

“I got up and down for a par 5,” said a relieved Cantlay, “which was pretty big at the time.”

In the afternoon he birdied the hole, just missing an eagle attempt.

Cantlay is 28. His background is the stuff of movie plots, perhaps appropriate for a native southern Californian. While at UCLA in 2011, he was the world’s No. 1 amateur. He went pro and first incurred a stress fracture in his back, then became despondent after his caddy, a long-time friend, was struck fatally by a hit-and-run driver in Newport Beach near where Cantlay stood.

“For a while, I could care less about everything,” Cantlay told the Santa Ana Register. “Not just golf, everything ... Nothing felt like it mattered.”

Certainly golf matters now. He won the Zozo tournament, his third Tour victory, at Sherwood outside Los Angeles, his home area, three weeks ago. And while he said that is a confidence boost, he tries not to get too emotional. Even about his chances at the Masters.

“I do everything in a stoic way,” said Cantlay. ”I don’t work on it too much. If anything, I work on trying to smile a little more. I’m just kind of naturally that way. I’m that way when I eat breakfast. I’m that way when I play cards. That’s who I am.” 

That works for both cards and golf, of course. Don’t show how you feel, until the end. Don’t get rattled or excited.

Ben Hogan would have approved. The great Hogan rarely changed expression on the course. Golf was serious labor to Ben, as it is to Cantlay.

“I enjoy it out there,” said Cantlay. “Golf is what I love to do. But I’m just as focused as I can on doing the best I can.”

He should be pleased, then, to know that in the last four rounds played in the Masters, of the players on the leaderboard, he’s been the best, at 20 under par.

“I think part of that,” he said about the achievement, “is you just get good feelings here, and you come back every year. I’m just trying to build those good feelings.”

Construction is nearly complete.

“I think for the most part my game plan hasn’t changed much,” said Cantlay, “but just feeling comfortable and getting some momentum around here ... Some good stuff was coming, and it did at the Zozo.

“Hopefully there’s still more to come.”

Woods’ opening Masters round was ‘Tiger-esque’

By Art Spander

Tiger-esque. Justin Leonard used the word, a neologism, about a round of golf Thursday by, yes, Tiger Woods — who else?

He used it on the Golf Channel. Used it to describe the way that Woods shot a 4-under-par 68 in the opening round of the Masters. Used it to emphasize that, in this era of power, this age of Bryson DeChambeau and 400-yard tee shots, there’s still a place for accuracy and consistency.

There's still room for someone like Leonard himself, the 1997 British Open champion, who when he wasn’t splitting fairways was saving pars out of bunkers.

Day One of the 84th Masters, and there was Woods — near the end of a golfing year full of disappointment and questions — high on a leader board of nostalgia.  

Tiger was three shots behind Paul Casey — a lead that, because the round would not be completed until Friday after a 2-hour, 47-minute rain delay, was not definite. But Woods was there, definitely. And unexpectedly, perhaps.

The Masters is the old guys’ major, where experience counts. Those greens are killers, loaded with subtle breaks and drops, even when the tournament is shifted to the fall for the first time from its traditional spring dates because of the pandemic.

Jack Nicklaus won it at age 46 in 1986. Familiarity brings contentment when you no longer can bring the long ball. Check Thursday’s scores: Bernhard Langer, 70 (he’s age 63); Larry Mize, also a 70 (he’s age 62).

Tiger isn’t quite in that age group, but he will be 45 in December, and he hadn’t done much since the Tour restarted in the summer after the Covid suspension.

But he is Tiger. We’ve seen it in Nicklaus, in Gary Player, in athletes from other sports. Greatness may diminish, but it doesn’t disappear. As Woods reminded us.

He stunned us in the last Masters, winning when supposedly he had no chance. He couldn’t do it again, could he?

“In the beginning of his career, (Woods) was Nolan Ryan,” said Leonard, invoking a fellow Texan for comparison. “He could do things nobody else could do with a golf ball. Now he’s more of a Greg Maddux. He’s got to mix his pitches. He’s got to paint the corners of the plate. He’s got to fool the hitters.”

A baseball analogy. In golf, the only people Tiger has to fool are those who figure his career has reached the end.

“I saw Tiger (on Thursday) hit a lot of little knockdown shots,” said Leonard, about lower-trajectory or punch shots. “He has to do things differently. (Fellow analyst) Brandel Chamblee spoke of softer conditions bringing the medium-length hitters back into the fold. It certainly was soft, and Woods certainly is a medium-length hitter.”

Still, your score is based on how many strokes you take, not how long or short you hit the ball.

On Thursday, Woods took almost a minimum. He had nothing higher on any hole than a par, his first bogey-free round of his last 106 rounds in the majors and his first at the Masters since 2008. He hit 10 of 14 fairways and 15 greens.

“Yeah, I did everything well,” said Woods. “I drove it well, hit my irons well, putted well. The only bad shot I hit today was, I think, eight. (That’s the uphill par-5). I had a perfect number (yards) with a 60-degree sand wedge, and I hit it on the wrong shelf.”

Woods said he is upbeat any time he’s at Augusta National Golf Club, the Masters' home, and why not? He’s won the tournament five times, one fewer than Nicklaus and one more than Arnold Palmer.

“Understanding how to play this golf course is so important,” said Woods. “I’ve been saying that I’ve been lucky enough to have so many practice rounds throughout my career with so many past champions. And I was able to win the event early in my career and build myself up for understanding you’re going to come (here) every year.

“I saw Raymond (Floyd), Bernhard (Langer) and Freddie (Couples) always contend late in their careers (each was a Masters champion). Just understanding how to play this golf course was a big part of it.”

Tiger Woods, who has been a big part of the Masters, obviously understands.

Pretension and competition — that’s the Masters

By Art Spander

The Masters always has been a tournament of equal parts pretension and competition.

The insistence to call spectators “patrons” can be discomforting.

The intent to put on an event CBS’s Jim Nantz calls “a tradition unlike any other” — is that pretentious enough for you? — can be satisfying.

A month from his 45th birthday, Tiger Woods will appear in this Masters, which starts on Thursday. As both defending champion and symbol.

He has become not only the face of the event but, because of his ethnic background and singular recognition, the voice as well, interesting especially for those who remember the bad old days of racism in the game and at the club.

A sport once as white as the balls used for play, golf crept slowly into the present. The Masters began in 1934. No African-American appeared until 1975, when Lee Elder was in the field.

The current Masters chairman, Fred Ridley, a former U.S. Amateur champion, announced Monday that Elder, now 86, next April would join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player to hit a ceremonial first tee shot.

Woods tweeted his delight, and on Tuesday, interview day for so many of the big guns, Tiger said in affirmation, “Lee was a pioneer. He was the one that broke the color barrier here and paved the way for players of color like myself to be able to play in this event.”

Woods also was aware of a chronological connection.

“It’s ironic he did it in ’75.” Woods said of Elder. “I was born in ’75, and when I won in ’97 (Elder) was on the back of the green. So to have him here Monday, and to be able to see him and have him as our honorary starter next April — it’s awfully special and important in the history of the event. But for me personally, it’s probably even more important.”

When it comes to importance, no one at the moment compares to Tiger. As ESPN is all too well aware.

The network may not care that much for golf — the NFL is the hot item, of course — but it cares for personalities and ratings. Since ESPN has the Thursday and Friday rounds (CBS has Saturday and Sunday), it has overwhelmed us with Tiger.

Look, Woods’ come-from-behind victory 19 months ago was stunning, but it wasn’t a world changing, “where were you when?” sort of occurrence like the moon landing. Big in sports? Absolutely. But let’s not get carried away.

Tiger’s first Masters was in 1995, when he was 19 and a freshman at Stanford. A quarter century later, he recalls a Wednesday practice round with a couple of tournament champions named Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

“I was a little punk college student,” a chuckling Woods said, “and we’re playing for skins (dollars) and I didn’t have any cash in my pocket.”

Through the years, even after he earned millions, Woods was notorious for not paying off golf debts.

“Arnold makes a putt on 18,” said Tiger. “Takes all the skins away from us. And Jack and Arnold asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to go play the par-3 contest?’ Well, I’m scheduled to go later. ‘Well, just follow us.’ And we played together, and that was awesome.”

The word is overused in sports, but it very much applies to Woods. He won the ’97 Masters, and as the TV folks tell us, he “made the dial move.” Anytime he’s out there, it still moves.

Woods has won five Masters and 82 pro tournaments. He’s won the love of golf fans — well, patrons — and manufacturers of golf products, not a small percentage of which have shirts and hats with his logo on the front.

A fixture in April, the Masters in 2020 has been shifted to late autumn because of the coronavirus pandemic.

”We’ve never played it in the fall,” said Woods. “The grass is different. The conditions are different. The run-up to the event is different.”

But it still is the Masters, pretension and competition. Wonderful.