Favourite Dustin Johnson wary of Masters pitfalls

With the golf Dustin Johnson is playing right now, he is clearly the golfer to beat at this week’s Masters. 

Yet while the American has the golfing world at his feet, he has been through enough disappointment in major championships to take nothing for granted. The world number one will tee off tomorrow at Augusta National on the back of three consecutive wins in as many starts. No golfer has been in hotter form since Rory McIlroy’s run of Open, WGC-Bridgestone and PGA Championship wins in 2014 and it is no surprise to see Johnson, 32, heading the betting markets.

His last three starts have produced victories in the Genesis Open at Los Angeles’ Riviera Club, the WGC-Mexico Championship and the WGC-Dell Match Play in Austin, Texas, a fortnight ago. Those wins have taken him past world number two Rory McIlroy (13) in terms of PGA Tour titles, to 15 and only Tiger Woods has won more, 18, since Johnson came on tour in 2008. And with two top 10s at Augusta National in his last two starts, a tie for sixth in 2015 and a career-best T4 12 months ago, why would anyone doubt he has one arm inside the sleeve of a green jacket already?

Well, Johnson for one. He may possess supreme confidence in his game and is not awed by his red-hot favouritism, just aware of the pitfalls.

“Golf, it’s a funny game,” he said last night. “It doesn’t matter how good you’re playing, you can still not win. Same goes for this week. If I want to win here, everything’s going to have to go well for me. I’m going to have to drive it well, hit my irons well, putt it well. Everything is going to have to be really good.

“You know, I’ve got a lot of confidence in my game right now, especially with the way I’ve been playing the last few tournaments. But, you know, anything can happen.” Johnson knows all too well about the vagaries of anything that can happen actually happening. It has cost him a string of major victories and conversely handed him his first, at last year’s US Open when he trailed Ireland’s Shane Lowry after 54 holes at Oakmont and then benefited from the Irishman’s last-round collapse.

That was Johnson’s big breakthrough after so much major championship torment, when he gave that spine-clinging monkey its marching orders and shifted into top gear, the first of six wins and 11 further top-10 finishes since last June.

“Yeah, I gave him the kick-start he wanted,” Lowry said wryly on Monday. “I’ve played a couple of times with Dustin. He is possibly the most talented golfer in the world. He’s the best at the minute. He makes it look so easy, and he’s putting well at the minute as well. What he’s doing, he is dominating the game and he has done for the last few months.”

And at no point has Johnson appeared more dominant that now, in Augusta, on the eve of the 2017 Masters. “Well, I’ve always liked the course, since I came,” Johnson said. “I always thought it suited my game very well. It’s a tough golf course, and like I was saying, everything in your bag needs to be working for you to play well around here. You know, the last couple of years, I’ve done a little bit better and I feel like I’ve had a chance. Yeah, obviously I’m playing well coming into this week, so hopefully I can continue that success and I’m looking forward to giving myself a chance to win on Sunday.”

Recent history is against Johnson, given no pre- tournament favourite has been successful here since Woods in 2005. Yet he is always prepared to break type. Asked if there was anything about the Masters course, or the pressure of being the favourite, that can get to them, he offered a succinct reply: “I don’t know. It’s the first time I’ve ever been favourite.”