A final round of the 2020 Traveler Championship that took almost all of Sunday finally spit out Dustin Johnson (-19) as its champion even though DJ, at different points in Round 4, hit a ball out of bounds and played one with his socks and shoes removed while standing in the water. And that was exactly what happened in the last six holes of the tournament, as he won by a hit over Kevin Streelman after posting a 67 low 3.
After the Players Championship was canceled in early March, we didn’t see a DJ for more than two months. When we finally saw him play golf again, he looked like a boy who had just been introduced to the game. Playing alongside Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff at a charity event at Seminole Golf Club, the term “rust” does not begin to describe how DJ was playing.
That carried over to his first official event a few weeks later at the Charles Schwab Challenge, where he missed the cut after shooting 71-71. Last week was a little better as he made his way to the top of the leaderboard this weekend in Harbor Town.
Even the Travelers Championship started hard for Johnson, who opened the T79 event despite a first-round 69 as the entire field went downhill. However, no one comes out of depression like a DJ; His victory on Sunday came after starting in the lowest round position for an event winner on the PGA Tour since 1983.
Rather than being carried away by his own head over the past 15 lackluster months (just two of the top 10 since last year’s PGA Championship), DJ kept on DJing. This resulted in his 21st career victory on Sunday at TPC River. Highlands.
The story of the final round is the story of last year, the story of Johnson’s career. Even when things go wrong, like hitting a drive out of bounds on the 13th hole, he saves it and plays the next shot without thinking. It’s easy to make fun of him, but he’s also the DJ Combine genius who has perhaps the greatest talent of the modern era, and you get 21 wins over the course of 12 years (and 13 consecutive seasons in which he has won).
Johnson didn’t have his best things on Sunday, finishing 48th from the tee to the green, but he kept coming and kept coming, even when much of the standings (including playmate Brendon Todd, who shot 75) fell apart. A hot putter sometimes wore it. In others, he relied on the most dangerous driver in the world (as in the last hole when he pumped one at the winning distance).
It is fitting that in between all of this, just after Johnson finished a pair after hitting his second foot in the water at No. 15, there was a rain delay. I feel safe to say that no one in the history of golf is more prepared than not to worry at all about a weather delay and does not need a warm-up to finish a victory. Which is exactly what he did for the first time in 16 months. I bet we don’t go another year before Johnson gets No. 22. Grade A
Will Gordon (S3): What a week for Gordon, who entered the tournament with a sponsor exemption and finished third in the week. That’s a big deal because Gordon, who is not a member of the PGA Tour, has earned himself a place in next week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic with his top 10 (and he doesn’t have to burn the sponsor exemption he used to enter it). Plus, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because you get unlimited sponsor exemptions for the rest of the season by earning a special temporary membership. (Jordan Spieth did this in 2013 before winning the John Deere Classic.) Given the circumstances after shooting a 71 on Saturday while playing in the final group with Phil Mickelson, his Sunday 64 was almost as difficult as it sounds. Grade A
Brendon Todd (S11): Sunday was a difficult day for someone who had played so brilliantly for 54 holes. Todd, who entered on the 18th of the week, shot a 5-for-75 and didn’t make a single birdie in his last round. He had a chance to take the inside track at the PGA Tour 2020 Player of the Year award, but all of that fell apart when he made an incredible triple bogey on the 12th hole on Sunday that included a rough shank and six shots to reach the green. It has still been a good year for him, but Sunday will burn. Grade: B +
Rory McIlroy (T11): He played well throughout the week, but a statistical category is a bit alarming. During the last three days of play, McIlroy lost hits on the field on approach shots every day (five total). He (mostly) made up for it with a good driver, but this is not the traditional formula for McIlroy. He is one of the best iron players in the world (perhaps the best iron player in the world), but he didn’t notice TPC River Highlands. Finishing in the top 15 despite that statistic is impressive, but it’s not a place where McIlroy wants (or should) be. Grade b
Phil Mickelson (T24): The left-handed fading of the weekend (71-71), while annoying, was predictable. Playing for him at the level he played during the first two rounds from tee to green is a huge question, and he dropped to 54th in both round 3 and round 4 on hits taken tee to green. Although he’s incredibly optimistic about the future, I think hoping that he exists at the level where he needs to exist in terms of hitting the ball for a week or two weeks in a row is a monstrous request for a 50-year-old man. Also, we don’t do it today, but at some point we have to talk about the joggers he wore on Sunday. Grade b
