When most golf fans think back to the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, they think of the incredible mistake by Dustin Johnson on the 18th hole when he grounded his club in what he thought was a simple waste area.
It wasn’t. By local rules definition it was considered a hazard and grounding his club cost him a spot in the playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual champion Martin Kaymer.
People forget Johnson was playing in the last group with Nick Watney and it was Watney who took his spot in majors history with one of the the biggest collapses in the final round.
Greg Norman still holds the distinction of blowing that six-shot lead going into the final round of the 1996 Masters and no one can forget the 18th hole meltdown that cost Jean Van de Velde his shot at winning the 1999 Open Championship. Adam Scott still bears the sting of blowing a four-shot lead going into the final 18 of the 2012 Open Championship.
But it is Watney who bears the scars of Whistling Straits.
Watney was 13-under par through 54 holes, leading by three. An even par 72 would have won it easily, a 73 would have been good enough to hoist the Wanamaker. A 74 would have put him in the playoff.
On that fateful Sunday, Watney failed to break 80. It would end quickly for him.
His start was dreadful. He double-bogeyed the first, took bogey at the fourth then seemingly righted himself with a birdie at the sixth. At the par three seventh, it all came undone. “A guy clicked me on my back swing and I hit it in the lake and made triple,” Watney would tell everyone afterward. “It was pretty much over at that point.”
One click of the camera in the middle of his swing ended it. After the triple-bogey seven, he made bogeys at eight and nine and shot 43 on the front. Coming home he added a double at 11 and bogeys at 13 and 15. With the pressure long gone, Watney finished birdie-birdie-par for 81. It’s a finish Johnson could only dream of when he was notified by PGA officials that he suffered a two-shot penalty on the final hole and was out of it.
It was a sad duo that finished that day. Watney’s 81 is long forgotten. Johnson’s club-grounding is still talked about this week.
Johnson’s bunker at 18 won’t be in play this week. A corporate stand has been built over it.
