The crowd on the practice range at Augusta National couldn’t get enough of Dustin Johnson. Every time he launched a driver high and long, you could hear the reaction – a smash and a gasp – from some of those behind him in the gallery.
It carried over onto the course. When Johnson ambled down the 15th fairway in a practice round, he stopped and dropped a ball in the zone where short hitters might place their second shot, about 400 yards from the tee. A cowboy hat-wearing fan from South Carolina pointed to his buddies and said, “That’s just in case he really gets into one.”
And while Johnson may be best known for his well-deserved ability to hit it a long way, his deftness with the putter likely will determine his chances to win his first Masters.
“For me it’s all going to be up to my putting,” Johnson said. “I’m comfortable on the greens and I think if I can roll it well, I’ll be right there come Sunday.”
Statistics back him up. At the 2018 Masters, Johnson ranked second in the field in driving distance, but 34th in putting, and finished tied for 10th. In 2015, he led the field in putting and tied for sixth, and in 2016 he was seventh in putting and tied for fourth, his best showing in the event.
“I like these greens, they’ve got a lot of slope in them,” Johnson said. “I like to see the ball breaking.”
Johnson slipped to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking this week, falling behind Justin Rose by 0.14 points. His season includes victories at the European Tour’s Saudi International and the WGC-Mexico Championship – his 20th career win – a tie for fifth at The Players and tie for sixth at the Valspar Championship.
His belief in his skills on the green remain high, and he’s aching for another one of those weeks like he experienced while winning the 2016 BMW Championship, when he said, “I just made everything I looked at.”
“I have confidence with the putter,” he said. “Probably not as much as I do in the rest of the game, day-in and day-out, just because some days the hole looks like the size of a five-gallon bucket and some days it looks like the golf ball is bigger than the hole. I mean, it all feels pretty good.”
A great week putting could land Johnson his second major championship, adding to the U.S. Open he claimed in 2016 at Oakmont. Some, including Johnson, believe he should have more majors, but he’s not looking back.
“Disappointed or frustrated, one of those would be OK to describe that,” he said. “But you know, I’ve still got – hopefully still got – a lot of time left in my career.”
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