Dustin Johnson Looking to Extend PGA Tour Win Streak to 15 Straight Seasons
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — We haven’t seen much of Dustin Johnson on the golf course so far in 2022. Heading into The Players Championship this week, the Ryder Cup hero from the fall has played just twice on the PGA Tour since mid-October — hardly enough to break a sweat.
Don’t be fooled that Johnson’s lack of tournament play is a signal he’s starting to lack the enthusiasm to compete or dreads the grind. Quite the contrary, as Johnson — the No. 9 player in the world — is anxious to try to add to his remarkable Tour victory streak.
In the 2020-21 season, the 37-year-old became just the fourth player in PGA Tour history to win in each of his first 14 seasons, joining Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. And fewer than 30 players in the history of the game have secured as many as Johnson’s 24 Tour wins.
“I still feel great, my body feels good," Johnson says recently during a day of fellowship with some of golf’s best junior players at his annual Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship. “I feel like I’m just getting into my career. I feel like I still have a lot of really good years ahead of me. My goal is to keep winning as many golf tournaments as I can.
“It’s very hard to win on Tour and to do it every year for quite a while is even more difficult, but hard work goes into it. I have a great team around me and my family supporting me and letting me do what I need to do to be successful is so key – everybody involved in your life is part of your team and thus a big part of your success."
Since joining the PGA Tour in 2008, Johnson has won the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont and the Masters in 2020 with a record-setting score of 20-under par. He has also finished second in each of the other two majors — the British Open and PGA Championship. Just a handful of golfing greats can claim a career Grand Slam. Johnson would like to add his name to that short list, too.
“Absolutely, that is one of my goals and I do think about it,” Johnson says of the career Grand Slam. “But to me every tournament I play in is important, and all of them have great fields. Obviously, the majors are different, and I have two and I would like to build on that. For me, I don’t go into an event saying I’m going to win this tournament.
“For me, it’s more of the process of how I get there. I want to put myself in a position on Sunday to have a chance to win. That is my goal for the week in any major, just to give myself a chance and see what I can do from there because it is so hard out there now. The talent level is so good -- from 1 to 100 and even beyond — so to me anybody teeing it up that week of a major has a chance to win.”
Johnson plans to head to Augusta National in a few weeks to do his homework for the upcoming Masters. He returns to one of golf’s iconic locations with a special point of view.
“You definitely feel different going back as a past champion,” he says. “It’s a different feeling you receive from the members, from the staff — it’s just a lot different.
“Every time you play Augusta, you feel you learn something new about the place. And they are really good at tweaking it a little bit so no player gets too familiar with it. I know they’ve moved some tees this year and they like to mess a little bit with the slopes on the greens. It’s such a special place to me being a past champion there and growing up so close to it. It was definitely one I really wanted to check off the list. Now I’ve got one I would love to get another one.”
One of Johnson’s golfing security blankets is his physical fitness. He still tries to hit the gym once a day in his mid-30s.
“For longevity, you definitely have to stay in shape,” Johnson says. “For me it helps me more on the mental side of things of golf, being in the gym knowing I’ve put in the work, knowing when I tee it up, I feel the same on the first hole physically as I do walking up 18. I do it because I want to stay healthy. I want to have a long career.”
“What I’ve seen him do athletically over the years, well let’s just say he’s pretty much off the charts,” adds Allen Terrell, Johnson’s longtime coach.
Going 5-0 for the victorious U.S. team at the 2021 Ryder Cup might have converted a few more fans into the Johnson camp, but for the most part, despite his remarkable resume, the 6-foot-4 former Coastal Carolina University star mostly flies under the radar, not receiving nearly the attention as others on Tour do who have much fewer accomplishments.
“No, it doesn’t bother me at all,” Johnson says of a general lack of fanfare. “Those (other players) want it, and I’m sure if I wanted it, I could get it, but for me I try to stay as low-key as I can because that works for me. Maybe something else works for other guys but I just try to do me. Everybody is going to be different and everybody wants different things. I’m perfectly content the way I’m doing it.”
“His demeanor on the course is what helps make him so successful — he keeps it pretty level and some guys just don’t have that type of personality, they are either too high or too low,” adds Terrell. “I know the fans may like to see him pump a fist a little harder sometimes but he’s a cruiser, and that’s how he has always been.”
Johnson has had very few rough patches in a career that is heading into its 15th season, but when he has struggled — like a few tournaments after returning from the COVID-19 shutdown — his uncanny ability to bounce back into form is what makes him so darn good, Terrell said.
“Golf is a funny sport and it always has been,” Johnson says. “For me, I feel like it only takes one shot to turn it around. It’s all mental.”
“At his level it’s reminders, not changes,” adds Terrell. “At the end of the day for an athlete like Dustin you want them to discover the change because they remember it longer and they own it. Sometimes you have to lead them to the water, but I want him to feel like he has discovered it.”
Johnson, who has been ranked as the world’s No. 1 player for more than 130 weeks in his career, once again pledged his support to playing on the PGA Tour and not on a potential breakaway tour opportunity.
“The Tour is starting to do a little bit more for the top guys, where in the past they haven’t done that and some of the changes you’re going to see in the next few years are good,” Johnson says. “They are making the right changes and doing the right things, so I feel like at this point it’s going in the right direction, so I don’t have any complaints – the Tour is trying to step up and do the right things.”