While Jordan Spieth was having his way with the field last week at Pebble Beach, another big name was quietly, what-me-worrying his way to a third-place finish at the AT&T Pro-Am.
If you wanted to pick a guy to watch this week at Riviera, Dustin Johnson is the perfect candidate.
D.J. is rounding his game into shape nicely, at his pace, which typically is casual. Every day is casual Friday for D.J. He makes it look pretty easy at times, he makes a difficult game look simple. He doesn’t get too excited and is rarely in the dumps.
“I’m happy with the way I finished but I felt like I could have played a lot better,” is how Johnson described his week at the AT&T. “I felt like I was playing really well, didn’t make any putts on the front (nine),” he said of his Sunday effort, where four back nine birdies gave him a 68 at Pebble Beach and locked up the solo third finish.
“I feel like the game’s in really good shape, just kinda getting back into it.”
Gotta love the way D.J. casually gets back into it. He took all of November and most of December off, just spent that week in the Bahamas at the Hero World Challenge and casually finished third there. He casually finished sixth at the Tournament of Champions, unfortunately missed the cut at Torrey Pines then nailed third last week.
“I took (off) a lot of time in the offseason so I could be refreshed and ready to go this year,” Johnson said.
He’s not quite there yet, at his “A” game but the big guy doesn’t need his “A” game to win on the PGA Tour.
Like everyone else, he’s got Augusta National in the back of his mind.
But this week at Riviera, he looks like the perfect player to tackle this course.
There’s plenty of competition there — Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Justin Thomas is back in action, Patrick Reed is there. So is Matt Kuchar and the old guard — Phil Mickelson.
Then there’s casual D.J. He launches, he strolls and he puts up scores.
And he makes it look easy.
