Dustin Johnson: Short game, not driver, made the difference at Sentry

Dustin Johnson is the king of the long ball, but it was actually his short game that led to a dominating victory at the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

When a guy like Dustin Johnson wins, everybody likes to talk about how far he hits the ball, like on the 12^th hole Sunday, when he unleashed a drive that landed somewhere near 430 yards from the tee. But was it his driver or his wedge that won the tournament?

When it comes to long drives, Johnson actually tied with Hudson Swafford for the longest drive so far this season. Swafford’s was on the 7^th hole at Kapalua. Both were downhill shots, and, amazingly, a lot of guys can drive it at least 400 yards downhill. So far this season, starting at the Safeway Open, there have been 71 drives that were 400 yards or longer and 135 that were 390 or longer.

What was impressive was last week was Johnson’s accuracy off the tee, which he said was due to the new Taylormade M4 Driver. The M4 is a driver he just put in his bag last week, replacing the M3.

"“For me, it was the driver is what won me the golf tournament this week, because I really drove it well,” he said in his post round press conference. “I don’t think I hit a bad drive all week. I missed a few fairways, but some of these fairways I can’t hit even if I wanted to unless I like laid way back. So, but I never really, I don’t think I ever really was out of position with the driver ever all week.”"

The driver sports the new “twist” face, which, according to Taylormade, produces straighter shots.

While Johnson’s average percentage accuracy off the tee is 65 percent for the 2018 season to date, last week he upped it to 73.33 percent, according to PGA Tour’s Shotlink. You can see those stats on your phone with the PGA Tour app. Last year, for the entire season he averaged just over 56 percent drives in the fairway.

So far in this season, Johnson is 123^rd in driver accuracy, which means the accuracy was as much of a factor as length.

DJ is dialed in on his wedge game

But despite what Johnson said about the M4, it was not the only factor at work. Johnson has worked hard on his wedge game in the last two or three seasons. He has said previously that he practices an hour on his wedges and that he hits three shots with each wedge, high, medium and low shots.

Last season during the Genesis Open week, Johnson did a demonstration for Golf Channel where he explained that he when he uses a 60-degree wedge, he expects it to go 85, 90 and 105 yards, depending on how he hits it. With his 54-degree wedge, he will hit shots 105, 155 and 125 yards.

He added that if he is going to hit a tee shot or a layup shot, his goal is to hit it to one of those distances – or as close to them as possible — because then he is going to be able to hit a shot to the green that is a distance he has practiced. The shot to the 12^th green in the final round last week was a matter of knowing he could hit it that far and feeling that his driver, on that particular day, was going, as he likes to say, right where he was looking.

More from Pro Golf Now

Examining Shotlink for last week, Johnson hit a lot of wedges for second shots, and he hit a lot of approach shots to birdie distance, particularly in the last two rounds where he shot 66-65.

In the third round, he hit pitches from under 50 yards to relatively easy birdie distances on the 9^th, 14^th, 15th, and 18^th and made those putts. He birdied one par three and eagled the 12^th by holing out from the fairway. In the final round, he hit approaches inside 100 yards that turned into birdie putts on the 2^nd, 5^th, 6^th, 9^th, 15^th, and 16^th. And of course, he hit the 12^th green with a drive that landed six inches from the cup. Let’s face it. Sometimes you get lucky.

“I knew it was going to be pretty good, I just, obviously, didn’t think I was going to have a tap-in,” he admitted.

Next: Sony Open in Hawaii fantasy picks

So, while we are all enamored with Johnson’s ability to hit the long ball, we should not forget that it was his approach shots to birdie distance that may have made the difference. Of course, it’s hard to hit approaches close to the flag from behind trees, in bunkers and in the rough. Staying playable, which is what straighter drives allowed him to do, certainly helped him shoot low scores, and it carved out the path so his short game to shine.

Home/Golf News