Dustin Johnson in Search of The Perfect Driver for The Players

Dustin Johnson admitted prior to The Players that his game has not been the best in the last 12 months.  Initially, he blamed his putter. But there were other factors at work.

“The game has been pretty good this year,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference. “Struggled with the putting a little bit, but put in a lot of work last week, this week, and feel like I’m rolling it a lot better.”

The issue, he said, is getting the ball started on a good line.

“I feel like I read the greens really well. I’ve got really good feel on the greens, just it’s all about starting it where you’re looking. Just really been focusing hard on that,” he said.

Usually when a player focuses on one area of his game, he sees improvement, but it’s important not to let the other aspects of the game go in the process. That is hard to do.

One glitch in the works is that Dustin Johnson has also been in search of the perfect driver.

“I must have tested 100 drivers probably.” Dustin Johnson

“Last year I felt like I was doing a lot of driver testing, and then so kind of took away a little bit from what I needed to be working on,” he explained. “I must have tested 100 drivers probably.”

He took two drivers to Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open.

Doing so much work with the driver affected his iron play which is usually a strength for him.  When he was able to drive it well, his irons were off and vice versa, so it was a year of his game not meshing with all the clubs in his bag.

“It was just kind of a frustrating year,” he said.

Dustin Johnson also said there wasn’t enough time to explain in depth what was going on with his game. However, he has only played in four tournaments since the Ryder Cup. One of them was the Saudi International which he won in 2019 and 2021. The others were the CJ Cup, in mid-October, and the Genesis Invitational and Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year. That’s just four events in the last five months. It’s hard to be in good form without playing more regularly.

His performance at The Players, on a course that he believes sets up well for him, has not been ideal in the past.  His best finish is a tie for 5th in 2019.

“I feel like moving to March, I feel like I can read the greens a little bit better,” he said. “The last few days I feel like I’m rolling the ball really well on the greens, but I would say that would probably be the number one thing.”

Johnson had been rumored to be a candidate for switching allegiance from the PGA Tour to Greg Norman’s LIV Tour and the Saudi Golf League, but he and Bryson DeChambeau, another player who was rumored to have interest in the Saudi proposals, both issued statements two weeks ago saying they were staying with the PGA Tour.

“Obviously it was something that you had to have a little bit of interest in, in my position, but like I said, talking with my family and my friends and my team, I think we made the best decision for me,” Johnson explained.

Dustin Johnson is now 37 years old, turning 38 in June.  He’s two years away from being in his 40s, a time when many golfers are not able to perform at the same high level that they did in their 20s and 30s. The two exceptions to that are Sam Snead and Vijay Singh. Snead won 29 times after 30, and Singh won 19 times after 40. Even Tiger Woods won just three tournaments after turning 40, but a lot of that has to do with injuries and surgeries.

Many golfers decline in victories after age 40, but not all of them.  Because of that, Dustin Johnson probably at least looked at Saudi proposals. He admitted that he had discussed it with some of his sponsors and people he knew in and around golf before coming to a final decision. He would not discuss what those talks were or with whom.  With the money that was supposedly being proposed, most people would take a look at it, at the very least.  Now that the Saudi kerfuffle is in the rear-view mirror, Johnson, as well as others, can concentrate on PGA Tour golf and The Players.