Can Dustin Johnson Still Win FedEx Cup in 2021?

Because Dustin Johnson hasn’t won a tournament in 2021, it’s easy to think that the FedEx Cup is out of his reach. But even if he misses the cut at Northern Trust, it’s likely he will still make it to Atlanta. He does need some good play at the BMW and the Tour Championship to have a great chance at the cup, but the great thing about being DJ is he is always just a few good swings away from a miraculously low round.

“I know I’m a good player,” he said prior to the Northern Trust. “I’ve been a really good player for a long time. So, playing a few bad rounds doesn’t really bother me too much.”

He said there were things he knew he needed to work on and said he had done that.

“Any time, no matter how bad I’m playing, it only takes one shot here or one shot there where I get a nice feel, and it turns everything around,” he added.

Since his Masters victory last November, it seems Johnson has been kind of coasting, and that’s acceptable. It’s clear that the Masters victory meant a lot to him. We could tell from the post-victory tears that it was not a garden variety win. When you have that kind of career moment, you’re allowed to take it a bit easy for a while before deciding which mountain to climb next.

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However, this year, Johnson opted out of the Olympics to focus on the FedEx Cup. At the beginning of the playoffs, he found himself in 17th place. He did not seem worried about his game, though. Maybe that’s because he was 15th last year when the playoffs started, and he won everything. His advantage is he knows what he can do because he’s already done it. But last year’s playoffs were different for him.

After a first round 67 in the 2020 Northern Trust, he posted a 60 in the second round and finished the Tournament with an 11-stroke margin over the field. It was Tiger-esque scoring to be sure. The final score was 30-under par. It was the first time that low a score had been posted on a par 71 course on the PGA Tour.

This year’s Northern Trust was complicated by a crack in Johnson’s driver just before round one started. He ended up using a 3-wood.

“My 3-wood’s like 275 shot, but into the wind, obviously that comes way down, where driver I can still carry in the 290s to 300 into the wind,” he explained.

As it turned out, he was 53rd in driving distance using his 3-wood.

Immediately after round one, he went to the range with a new Taylormade SIM2 and SIM head to find one that would suit him for round two. Whichever one he selected, it may not have worked well enough for him to play on the weekend. But as there’s a hurricane approaching New Jersey, this may be one cut he is happy to miss.

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