Dustin Johnson focuses on results, not stats, with Masters looming

Dustin Johnson has taken control over his complete game in recent years, and it’s made him one of the most formidable players on the planet. Heading into the Valspar Championship – and with the Masters looming close behind – he’s dialed in on simply getting his feel right and winning as much as possible.

Some golfers can tell you where they stand in strokes gained driving or tee to green or putting. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson is not one of those guys.

He said looking at them doesn’t provide any new information.

“I know what I need to work on,” he said to media at the Valspar Championship.

In the last few years, Johnson has spent a lot of time improving his short game and that vaulted him higher into the world rankings. It also resulted in a U.S. Open victory and several World Golf Championship titles. He’s now won 20 tournaments and has to play just three more seasons to have a lifetime exemption on the PGA Tour. Not that he will stop after three years.

Johnson’s record shows that except for 2014, he’s won at least one tournament every season since turning pro, with multiple wins in several seasons. Last year, he won three times and the year before, it was four. If he continues at that pace, he’s could win 40 PGA Tour tournaments before he’s 40. Only 10 golfers in history have won 40 tournaments or more in their careers. Only 35 players in history have won 20 or more. That means Johnson’s playing in rarefied air. However, he’s very down to earth when it comes to his golf.

Coming off The Players, where he was in the top five, his best ever finish, he thinks he’s ready for any course, especially the Copperhead at Innisbrook.

More from Golf News

“This is another good week with a tough golf course,” he noted. “You got to hit really good shots, and you don’t have to shoot under par too much here.”

What he means is that compared to a tournament like the Desert Classic, where 25-under par wins, the Valspar winner is likely to be 15-under or less. That favors his power game because his length allows him to have great opportunities to birdie the par fives and gives him a shorter shot into par threes compared to those who do not hit it as far as he does. Not that any PGA Tour players are actually short hitters. Dustin Johnson, however, is almost absurdly long, averaging 305 plus yards off the tee.

The reason Johnson is playing in Tampa is that he needed to add another tournament to his schedule this season.

“I had a few tournaments to pick from,” he explained. “I think I got to add one event every year that I hadn’t played, and this was, it fit the best in my schedule and out of the courses I had to choose, I think I like this one the best.”

He thinks he has just about returned to the form of 2017 when he had an untimely slip on some stairs in Augusta, Georgia, fell, and landed on his back.

"“I’m getting closer, for sure. I feel like the swing’s starting to feel a lot better. The shot patterns are starting to get more consistent. So now it’s the closest I’ve been to that,” he said. “Back then that was probably the best form I’ve ever been in, and getting injured, it’s taken a while to get back to that form. Obviously, I played very well in that stretch, but I wasn’t as comfortable as I was then kind of throughout the whole bag.”"

As he pointed out, getting injured when you are in great form is not good for anyone, and it took a long time to get back to the point where he could swing without worrying about it.

“It didn’t like tear anything or break anything, but just from the injury, yeah, the time I had to take off after that, it definitely, especially when you’re in that good of form, it takes you a little while to get back to it,” he added.

Being in good form this time of year is important for every golfer, and Johnson is no exception. While he will focus on Valspar this week, in the back of his mind, he knows that the Masters is just a couple of weeks away. It’s on his radar.

"“Definitely need to work on the short game a lot going into Augusta, and but I mean I feel like I can get sharper with everything, driving, irons, wedges,” he said. “But the short game is very important around Augusta.”"

Interestingly, he wished he could play an 18-hole pro-am on the Copperhead course instead of a 9-hole one so that he could revisit more of the course.

“I played here a couple times and it’s a really good track,” he said. “You got to golf your ball around here if you want to shoot a good score, and it’s a golf course where I feel like it fits my game a little bit better now than it did back then, so I’m looking forward to playing this week.”

The only injury on team Johnson is his brother Austin, who fell going up stairs after The Players. He’ll be sporting a cast while he caddies.

“Those stairs, man, they’ll get you,” Dustin Johnson quipped. “Broke a bone in his hand.”

Apparently the AP golf writer, Doug Ferguson thought this was funny enough to tweet. In a dark sort of way, he’s not wrong.

Tough caddying week for Austin, who has a cast on his left arm from when he tripped going up the stairs. Can't make this up.
Stairs 2, Johnsons 0.
— Doug Ferguson (@dougferguson405) March 20, 2019

2019 Valspar Championship Power Rankings. dark. Next

While the injury might have some comic effect, Dustin Johnson is deadly serious on keeping his game in top form heading into the major championship run. This week at the Valspar Championship should give him a perfect tune-up with the Masters inching closer every day.

Home/Golf News