Johnson leads FedEx with Barclays win

BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2011 Barclays Classic | Wrap | 28 Aug 2011

Dustin Johnson might have been unable to reproduce his early day three brilliance over the closing stages of the Barclays Classic but he had done enough over the opening nine holes of the final round to ensure that even nine straight pars was good enough to win the opening event of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Johnson won by two over Matt Kuchar and by three over Vijay Singh and the fast finishing Brandt Snedeker whose final round of 61 was set up by five consecutive birdies to open proceedings.

Play was brought forward so as not to clash with the pending arrival of Hurricane Irene and with soft fairways and greens, a lift clean and place rule in effect and the calm before the storm prevailing, the scoring over the final round was simply stunning.

Johnson began the day one behind the defending champion Kuchar but birdies at his opening two holes had him in front. A bogey at the third by Johnson and a birdie at the same hole by Kuchar and the tide had swing back in Kuchar’s favour but Johnson would take the lead for good when he holed a bunker shot for eagle at the almost reachable par four 4th.

Johnson would go on to complete an opening nine of 29 and the lead by one as he, Kuchar and playing partner Vijay Singh headed for home. Although Kuchar briefly rejoined Johnson in the lead when he holed a 15 footer for birdie at the par three 11th, bogeys at the 12th and 13th handed Johnson a two shot lead with five to play.

The victory resulted in Johnson taking the lead in the FedEx Cup race and moved him to third on the money list for 2011 despite this being his only victory of the year to date. He had though finished runner-up at the WGC Cadillac and the Open Championship and 3rd at the Farmer Insurance Open so he has now been suitably rewarded for what had already been a very strong season.

“It feels great, said Johnson after his victory. “I feel like I’ve played pretty well all year but just haven’t quite been able to get that win. The putter has been lacking a little bit. This week I finally rolled some putts, so this feels really good.”

“I knew there wasn’t supposed to be thunderstorms for a while, so obviously the way I got started, I was hoping that we were going to keep continuing on playing, added the winner referring to the possibility of play being called off if things got bad weatherwise. “But you know, it never really crossed my mind. I was just worried about, I just kept telling myself, one shot at a time. A lot of times, I get ahead of myself a lot and just tried to stay patient and just focus on the shot I was hitting.”

Having been so impressive through the opening 47 holes Kuchar was unable to apply any further pressure over the closing seven but the runner-up finish keeps him within striking distance of winning the money list title for the second consecutive season.

Kuchar has not won an official event to date this season but he has developed into one of, if not the most consistent player on the PGA Tour, this week’s effort being his 9th top ten of the season. It was a good comeback following a stretch of golf dating back to the Open Championship which had not seen Kuchar at his best but with two courses coming up on which he has played well previously there is likely to be a lot more to come.

Kuchar was full of praise for his conqueror today. "Guys like Dustin Johnson can make golf seem really easy. I don’t know if I’ve seen a guy drive the ball a whole lot better than Dustin Johnson. For his length, it seems like he rarely goes off line. He might have missed a number of fairways but they weren’t ever big misses. They were like, that’s a good-looking drive. You’re just not sure how far it’s going to carry and if it will make the rough or not make the rough. It’s impressive.

“If you could have any one attribute as a golfer, you would want to kind of drive it like Dustin Johnson. You would want to hit it that far and that accurate. From there, golf gets a whole lot easier. I think it’s hard to miss greens. Even if you’re not making putts, you probably are not going to make a whole lot of bogeys when you just drive it 320 yards down the middle of the fairway. You may not light it up if the putter is not working that day but it’s hard to play really bad golf.”

Singh lost his way on the greens over the closing nine holes but the quality of his play from tee to green told the story of one of the game’s most credentialed players being well and truly back. It was his second consecutive top five and given that he is a previous winner at next week’s venue then we can look for more to come from the Fijian also. The finish will not hurt his chances of being a late contender for the International Presidents Cup side either.

The Australians were headed by Jason Day and Aaron Baddeley who finished in a share of 13th.

Marc Leishman appears to be on the way back to form after a tough run of tournaments in the last few months. After what had been a good start to the season he was very ordinary through the middle of the year but the last two weeks have been much better. He was only 32nd this week but it followed a good tournament last week in Greensboro.

Greg Chalmers was 43rd, Robert Allenby 52nd and Adam Scott almost inexplicably 67th dropping 58 places with his final round of 76.

Australians remaining in the FedEx Cup race and therefore those who have a start at next week’s Deutsche Bank Championship are (in order) Jason Day, Aaron Baddeley, Adam Scott, Robert Allenby, John Senden, Marc Leishman, Geoff Ogilvy and Greg Chalmers.

Those who dropped out this week are Nick O’Hern, Stuart Appleby, Rod Pampling and Steve Bowditch.

Ogilvy who missed the cut this week will need to play well enough in Boston to move from his current 92nd position on the Fed Ex Cup table and inside the top 70 who advance to Chicago. If he does not then he will have no further chance to impress Captain Greg Norman in terms of securing a wild card selection for the Presidents Cup team. It is a scenario that would have seemed barely believable a few months ago when he finished 4th at Augusta National.

From this week’s event in New Jersey, therefore, the PGA Tour moves north to Boston for the Deutsche Bank Championship in the hope that Hurricane Irene or her impact will not reach that far north

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