Dustin Johnson is a pure enigma on the PGA Tour.
He is puzzling, inexplicable at times.
He provided the most incredible moment, the most disastrous moment and the most memorable moment in 2015, all rolled into one on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open Championship.
He had just birdied the 71st hole at Chambers Bay to pull within a shot of Jordan Spieth. He launched a massive drive on the final hole and had a five-iron for his second shot. He hit what could have been the shot of the tournament as that five-iron stopped just 12 feet from the cup.
Hole the putt and he wins his first major, a two-putt sends it into a playoff with Spieth.
Then Johnson did what Johnson has often done — he shot himself in the foot, no, he shot himself in both feet with a three-putt that handed the title to Spieth.
It wasn’t his first close call in a major. He finished runner up at the 2014 Open Championship he tied for fifth at the 2010 PGA and was sixth at the Masters last year. He led last year’s Open Championship after 36 holes then inexplicably shot 75-75 over the weekend at St. Andrews.
At 6-4, 195 pounds, he’s considered one of the most athletic players on the PGA Tour. He can pound drives past the 350-yard mark and has become a better short iron player. His putting is still suspect, as is his mental approach to the game.
In 2014 he took his mysterious “leave of absence” from the PGA Tour. Golf.com reported he was suspended six months for testing positive for cocaine.
Johnson came back in 2015 and played solid golf, winning at Doral and putting himself right there at the U.S. Open and again at St. Andrews.
Yet every time he threatens to win a major, he simply gets in his own way.
It has become painfully obvious that the only person keeping Dustin Johnson from winning a major is Dustin Johnson.
Can he overcome his past history and change all that in 2016?
There’s no shortage of talent but when it comes to decision-making, well, that’s when Dustin Johnson can happen.
This will be his ninth year on the PGA Tour.
Will this be the year he breaks his pattern of self-destruction?
Only Dustin Johnson can answer that question.
