Zach Johnson’s final day magic victory for old school style

Paul Dunne was not the only man to miss out on history at St Andrews last night as Jordan Spieth’s shot at golfing immortality went begging but for all the disappointments The Open Championship still managed to conjure up a very special conclusion.

That an American named Johnson should become the R&A’s 144th Champion Golfer of the Year would not have been too much of a stretch to imagine halfway through this weather-delayed major but the fact that it was Zach rather Dustin Johnson who lifted the Claret Jug at the ancient links yesterday evening gives hope that this sport has not completely been lost to bombers taking advantage of the latest technology.

On the links that gave us the game of golf and the legends of its famous sons Tom Morris, senior and junior, the Old Course delivered something of an old school champion for 2015 in Zach Johnson, who shot a final-round six-under-par 66 to tie with 2010 winner here Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Australia’s Marc Leishman and then emerged victorious from a four-hole play-off.

Here was a golfer, aged 39, who finished the week 150th for longest drive average and tied for third in fairways hit, his final round returning a 94% success rate and requiring just 26 putts.

“I’m kind of a classic guy,” Johnson said in answer to his favourite courses. “I like the classic ones. I don’t need anything that’s 8,000 yards; how about that?”

How about that indeed. His brand of pinpoint accuracy off the tee, onto greens and into the hole was enough to gain victory in the white heat of one of the most pulsating days of major championship golf seen in a long while and Johnson said he was humbled and honoured to have won it.

“It takes me back to when I turned professional,” he said as he clutched the Claret Jug during his victory press conference. “You could even go back further than that when I was playing as a youngster. These are the things you dream about. These are the things you’ve worked to get to. I’m humbled because there’s a lot of individuals that have put me in this position,that trust in me, and I trust in them.

“I’m humbled by, I think, the talent that I’ve been given, and I’m humbled right now because of what’s in my lap and the names that are etched on this piece of metal that is very special. It’s the who’s who in the game. It’s the guys that paved the way. It’s the individuals that are historic in sports.

“I’m humbled, I’m honoured, and it’s still beyond surreal. I guess when you have a great team, great things can happen.”

This was a wide Open Championship and Zach Johnson proved a worthy winner, even if he isn’t Spieth, who after his victories in this year’s Masters and US Open came up just one shot short of the play-off that may have delivered the third leg of a never-before-completed modern major Grand Slam.

The 21-year-old from Dallas had a chance to emulate fellow Texan Ben Hogan’s 1953 feat of winning the first three majors of a calendar year and then become a history boy in his own right with a tilt at the slam come next month’s PGA Championship in Whistling Straits. Yet despite failing to make his mark in a closing 69 that was undone by a deeply uncharacteristic four-putt double bogey at the 8th and a bogey at 17, it was the remarkably mature beyond his years Spieth who was the first outside Johnson’s immediate circle of caddie and wife to congratulate the new champion.

Johnson had won the Masters against the odds in 2007 and become one of the more consistent if unspectacular players on the PGA Tour since, but this was special, having started the final round three shots off the lead and raced to the front as 54-hole co-leaders Oosthuizen and Jason Day made steadier starts and their fellow frontrunner Dunne, the Irish amateur quickly dropped out of the race.

Having birdied the last to post a 66 and get to 15 under the American then had the agonising wait of more than an hour for the leaders to try and catch him. As Johnson’s patience was tried on a practice putting green next to the second fairway, Leishman tied with him first, then Spieth and Day missed their chances by parring 18 before Oosthuizen brought up the rear to make it a three-way, four-hole play-off. With Leishman bogeying the first and second Johnson went to the 18th, the fourth play-off hole, in one under, a shot in front of Oosthuizen and when he missed a birdie putt from 12 feet, the South African had a nine footer to force sudden death. He missed and Johnson was the champion, stoic at first then tearing up as the magnitude of his feat began to sunk in.

His two major victories had come at Augusta National and St Andrews.

“It’s a feat to be invited and an honour to be invited to those tournaments,” he said, “and to win at Augusta and to win The Open Championship at St Andrews, it’s hard to put it into words, as a golfer, as an athlete, as a guy — I’m not rich in history, I can tell you that. I’m not a great historian. I know the little things that probably most know, but I do know that this is the birthplace of a great game and a place that has fantastic fans.

“The venue is just, for those that love the game, this needs to be on their bucket list and I love playing it. I’ve said it many, many, many times: This championship, now it may sound corny because look what I’m holding, but it’s probably my most fun golf tournament inside the ropes. Ryder Cup is the Ryder Cup, Augusta is Augusta, I get that. But I just respect and appreciate what this tournament is all about and I could go on and on about that. It’s the best.”