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British Open: Dustin Johnson disappoints in opening round

By Brandon Raper

CARNOUSTIE, SCOTLAND - JULY 19: Dustin Johnson of the United States plays his shot from the 18th tee during the first round of the 147th Open Championship at Carnoustie Golf Club on July 19, 2018 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
CARNOUSTIE, SCOTLAND - JULY 19: Dustin Johnson of the United States plays his shot from the 18th tee during the first round of the 147th Open Championship at Carnoustie Golf Club on July 19, 2018 in Carnoustie, Scotland. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images) /
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Dustin Johnson’s British Open mission certainly didn’t start the way many envisinoed. The world’s No. 1 player struggled mightily at Carnoustie on Thursday, and he’ll have his work cut out just to play the weekend.

Dustin Johnson headed into this year’s British Open as the odds-on favorite, for plenty of good reasons. He’s not only the world’s No. 1 golfer, but he’s been an absolute machine this entire year. He’s got two wins and two runner-up finishes already on the PGA TOUR, and he just finished solo third at the U.S. Open, in spite of a Saturday 77 at Shinnecock. And there are so few weaknesses in DJ’s game, that’s actually worse than he was at this time last year.

Unfortunately, golf is a fickle beast, and nobody is immune from its wrath permanently. Remember the old saying? “You can’t win the championship on Thursday, but you sure can lose it.” That’s the best way to describe what Carnoustie did to Johnson in the first round.

Johnson’s British Open campaign started off fairly benign, actually. He put together seven straight pars before dropping his first bogey, a 4 on the par-3 8th. Still, it’s not as though the wheels were falling off just yet. Even when DJ dropped another bogey at No. 12, he found a way to bounce back, carding his lone birdie on the par-5 14th.

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He fell back to two-over after a bogey on 16, but things got positively Van de Velde-ian on No. 18. A disastrous triple-bogey sent him careening down the scoreboard, coming home at five over for the day.

At the end of the first round Johnson was tied for 129th place. If he has any hope of playing the weekend, he’ll likely need to shoot a 68 or 67 on Friday.

The good news is that the course will likely soften a bit with rain on Friday. The bad news? Only seven of the 156 players to go out on Friday met that 68 mark, on what was definitely one of the “easiest” scoring days at Carnoustie.

If Johnson is going to make anything of this week, he’ll need to figure out what’s wrong with his putting. He knows that’s the problem, but will he be able to fix it on the fly?

"“Just a month ago at the US Open, I played well enough to win but I didn’t putt well enough on the weekend to win,” Johnson said. “I didn’t feel like I was hitting bad putts, but I just wasn’t making anything. That’s golf.”"

Next: Tiger Woods on his British Open preparation

On the plus side, if anybody has the raw talent to turn a 76 into a 67 in the Scottish rain, it’s Dustin Johnson. Add in the pressure the British Open puts on everybody else, and all he needs to do is find a way to play the weekend. Look for a lot of fireworks from DJ early in his second round – he’s got nothing to lose.

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