KAPALUA, Maui — The PGA Tour season finally got under way on Monday, and Dustin Johnson wasted no time taking control in the Tournament of Champions.
Johnson had not played the Plantation Course at Kapalua since Thursday. Once he got started, he hardly missed a shot. Johnson had seven putts at eagle over 36 holes, four on the back nine alone in the second round. He missed only three greens in regulation. And when his marathon day ended, he had rounds of 69-66 for a three-shot lead over defending champion Steve Stricker.
Three days behind schedule because of high wind, the season started on the day the tournament was supposed to finish. Rickie Fowler made PGA Tour history by hitting the opening shot of the season three times — the first two “opening rounds” had to be scrapped by 40 mph gusts roaring down the hills.
Johnson returned some degree of normalcy under warm sunshine and strong wind. He simply overpowered Kapalua, twice driving the green on par 4s, one of them into the wind. He was at 11-under 135, and that lead looms even larger with only one round to play.
Stricker started the long day wondering if he could even finish. About a month ago, he began feeling a shooting pain down his left side when he shifted his weight in that direction, and he was limping badly coming down the hill on the 18th in the middle of his second round. But from 67 yards away, his pitch rode the slope and the wind to perfection and dropped for eagle, and his spirits lifted.
Stricker added a pair of birdies on the front nine and had a 67 to reach 138.
The opening week has been so strange that Monday at times felt like the start of the tournament, and also moving day to get into position. Even after just 36 holes, there was some clear separation.
Bubba Watson, playing with Johnson and frustrated by the wind and slow greens, birdied his last hole for a 69 and was four shots out of the lead. Keegan Bradley (69) and Brandt Snedeker (70) were another shot behind. They were the only players within five shots of Johnson.
Even though Johnson had not played the golf course since the pro-am Thursday, there was no lack of familiarity. He arrived a week early, and had six practice rounds on the Plantation Course before the wind arrived. He has a new driver and irons and wanted to make sure he made the adjustment. That doesn’t seem to be a problem.
“I’m pretty pleased with my equipment. I’m pretty pleased with my game right now,” Johnson said.
His only blunder in the afternoon was hitting the ball too well. He ran off three straight birdies late in the second round to pull away, and they were spectacular. He drove the green into the wind on the 292-yard 14th hole for a two-putt birdie, and then smashed a 3-wood 259 yards into the wind and onto the green for another two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th. That was followed by a knockdown shot from 90 yards that the wind blew back to the hole within 4 feet for birdie.
His caddie, Bobby Brown, wanted Johnson to hit 3-wood with the wind at his back on the 17th, but Johnson tried to hit a soft driver. He crushed it, as usual, and it ran through the fairway and into the hazard for his only bogey. He answered with a 5-iron from 243 yards on the downhill 18th for a 6-foot eagle to take command.
It’s tough enough for Stricker to match Johnson’s length on a course like this. Tougher still is doing it when he can barely walk, especially downhill. Stricker isn’t sure what’s wrong with his lower back, or what’s causing the pain. He took a small consolation from the fact it didn’t get worse.
“It felt as crappy on the first hole as the last hole,” he said.
Stricker said at the start of the tournament that he was going into semi-retirement this year, playing only about 10 events. He won’t return to the PGA Tour after this week until the end of February at the Match Play Championship. And he’s not going to roll over for Johnson, regarded as the best American player under 30.
“You’ve just got to go out and play and play your hardest and see what happens,” Stricker said. “I’ve been in that position where he’s at now. It’s a tough spot. It’s tough to win in front. We’ve got really nothing to lose tomorrow and it makes it a little bit easier for us, but tougher on him.”
Johnson will gladly take his position. He will be trying to win in his sixth straight season since leaving college, the longest streak of any player since Tiger Woods. And he won the last two 54-hole events on the PGA Tour, at the hurricane-shortened Barclays in 2011 and rain-delayed Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 2009.
