Leaderboard: Travelers Championship 

AUGUSTA, Ga. - All week it wasn't just the Masters, it was the stripped-down acoustic version of the Masters. You could hear the biophany of bird life chirping, unseen golf carts motoring, the train whistles coming in on the breeze. The only other audio was the regular thwack of a golf shot and the hissing vapor trail of a ball flying through the air. The clubs did almost all the talking. It was a Dustin Johnson kind of week. In a game obsessed with youth, Johnson, 36, is just coming into his prime, a reminder that great careers are revealed over decades, not social media hot takes. After carrying a four-shot lead over three players into Sunday, Johnson, whose languid strut and taciturn nature recall an Old West cowboy, started slowly but steadied himself to shoot 68 and win by five. His 20-under total breaks the Masters record of 18, shared by Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in DJ’s bag? Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith shot 69 to tie for second at 15 under. Johnson hugged his brother/caddie Austin on the 18th green, and Austin started crying first, the emotion soon spreading to his brother. They grew up an hour away, close enough to know all about Augusta National but not close enough to actually play it. "Well, as we’ve all seen, he’s an amazing athlete," said Woods, whose title defense ended with a 76 that featured a 10 at the par-3 12th hole. "He’s one of the first guys to ever bring athleticism to our sport. DJ has just an amazing ability to stay calm in tough moments ... and we all know as past champions how hard it is, the emotions we have to deal with out there." The day featured only fleeting suspense. Im cut the lead to one after Johnson made back-to-back bogeys, but Johnson restored order at the par-3 sixth, converting a short birdie putt. Smith made things interesting with a front-nine 33, including wild birdies at Nos. 7 and 9, but Johnson was always going to have to come back to the chase pack, and instead went the other way. There were polite claps amongst the 100 or so members - retired NFL greats Peyton Manning and Lynn Swan among them - plus wives and girlfriends and others following the final group. Absent the context you might have thought it was the club championship. By the time Smith, marching up the 15th fairway, looked back and saw that it was Johnson who was close to the pin on the 14th green, it was all but over. Smith frowned and looked down at the grass, Johnson made the six-foot putt, and the lead was five strokes with four holes remaining. This rain-delayed, pandemic-delayed Masters was essentially over. Was Johnson's arrival on this stage, the green jacket ceremony in Butler Cabin, also delayed? Not really. Before Woods, it was widely accepted that golfers peaked in their 30s. By that metric, Johnson is right on time. This is what he had in mind all those years ago when he honed his game at Weed Hill driving range in Columbia, South Carolina, just an hour or so from Augusta National. Johnson knew of the special tournament just down the road, even if he never had the connections to actually play here until he qualified for his first Masters in 2009. "Obviously growing up in Columbia, in high school, I hit a lot of golf balls at Weed Hill," he said in a rare reflective moment. "So definitely remember hitting up there in the dark. They had lights on the range, and most nights I would shut the lights off when I was leaving." It paid off. Johnson was twice a first-team All American at Coastal Carolina, where he won seven times, and his immediate success on TOUR was not unexpected. He won the 2008 Turning Stone Resort Championship and kept winning each year like clockwork from there. He had major championship type game, but the majors eluded him, sometimes gruesomely. All anyone wanted to talk about at Augusta was his 0-for-4 record closing them out when he had at least a share of the 54-hole lead - the gum on his shoe since the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when he lost his three-shot lead with a second-hole triple bogey, shot 82, and finished T8. He almost atoned for his mistake at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits two months later, but unintentionally grounded his club in a bunker on the 72nd hole. The ensuing two-stroke penalty kept him out of a playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual champion Martin Kaymer. Johnson had one hand on the trophy at two other U.S. Opens, but couldn't keep the lead there, either. A fellow player, of all things, mentioned these lapses when Johnson took the lead into the final round of the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in August, and it happened again. The snakebit leader shot a solid 68 only to lose to 23-year-old Collin Morikawa (64) by two. But good luck asking Johnson to get worked up about any of this. "That stuff doesn't bother me," he has said more than once. He just keeps on giving himself chances. The Masters marked the fifth time in his last seven TOUR starts that Johnson had held the 54-hole lead/co-lead, a run in which he'd already won THE NORTHERN TRUST and TOUR Championship to take the FedExCup. He also lost a wild head-to-head showdown with Jon Rahm at the BMW Championship. "I think I’ve got a good game plan," Johnson said from the stately, wood-paneled interview room in Augusta's cavernous press building Saturday night. "I’m not going to change it." And he hasn't. Instead of getting into a war of words over his major letdowns, the Johnson way has been to answer with blistered drives, laser-like approaches, and an improved putting stroke built with input from his caddie/brother Austin, and a lesson from World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman. And now he's gone and converted a 54-hole lead at the major players covet most just three months after his fitness for doing so was questioned more publicly than ever. Norman, of course, never did win here. He bled away a six-shot advantage and more to lose to Nick Faldo in '96. Rory McIlroy collapsed on the back nine and carded a final-round 80 in 2011, and Jordan Spieth quadruple-bogeyed the 12th hole to lose in 2016. Both lost four-shot leads. There are no guarantees at Augusta, or anywhere. At the 2017 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, Johnson shot 77 and became the second player in TOUR history to lose a six-shot 54-hole lead. He won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in his next start, five weeks later. Johnson is like the metal man in "Terminator 2" who keeps moving ever forward even as he keeps getting holes blown through him. He forgets quickly. He's a fast healer. This was Johnson's second major (2016 U.S. Open) and 24th TOUR win. He pulls even with Woods for most consecutive seasons with a win to start a career with 14, and moves from 17th to first in the FedExCup, which is where he ended last season. We are seeing the peak years of perhaps the most gifted golfer of his generation; Johnson's best may be better than anyone else's. The Weed Hill driving range closed in 2015, sold for development. But Bobby Weed, who built it when he was in high school to work on his own game, has gone on to a successful golf course design business. Johnson, meanwhile, glides and strides ever forward into the golf history books. His clubs have never spoken so loudly.

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Detroit is Motown, Hockeytown and now for four years running, Rocket Mortgage Classic-Town. This week, the PGA TOUR makes its penultimate regular season stop at Detroit Golf Club. While the event’s history might not yet span a half-decade, the golf course’s lifespan is spread across three centuries. When Donald Ross designed the track over 100 years ago, he might not have considered the likes of Cameron Davis and Joaquin Niemann attacking the flat terrain. 1. Technically a composite course Detroit Golf Club opened in 1899 during the William McKinley administration. The initial course had six holes and annual dues were $10. Three more holes were added in 1900. In 1913, after the club purchased some more property, it requested the presence of Donald Ross, just a few years removed from designing Pinehurst Nos. 1, 2 and 3. In Detroit, Ross felt he had enough room for two 18-hole courses. The North Course, a par 72, would ultimately become more daunting than the South Course, a par 68, with the North Course now roughly 870 yards longer. In 1914, Ross’ brother Alec was made head club professional, a post he maintained for 31 years. Alec, an accomplished player, won the 1907 U.S. Open. The Rocket Mortgage Classic layout is comprised of 17 holes from the North Course and one from the South Course. The PGA TOUR layout begins with holes 8 and 9 serving as Nos. 1 and 2, followed by hole 1 from the South Course serving as No. 3. The course then plays holes 2-7 of the North Course as Nos. 4-9 before the standard North Course back nine makes up the championship final nine. 2. Who’s who of Detroit Detroit Golf Club established itself roughly four years before the Ford Motor Company became incorporated. The Ross renovations were apparently enough to convince Henry Ford himself to join, as he became a member in 1915. His son Edsel, who served as Ford’s president from 1919-1943, was also a member. Since its start, Detroit Golf Club has brought together a who’s who of Detroit. Original Ford Motor Company stockholder and philanthropist Horace Rackham funded the initial $100,000 to pay for Ross’ 36 holes. U.S. Senator James Couzens, who sold his Ford Motor Company stock to Henry Ford for $30 million in 1919, was a common presence on the course, as was Fred Wardell, the founder of the Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company, based in Detroit. In more modern terms, athletes have made up much of Detroit Golf Club’s celebrity base. Justin Verlander, Jerome Bettis, Jim Leyland, Jim Schwartz and Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson have been among those to call Detroit Golf Club their golf home. On the arts side, famed poet Edgar Guest was an early member, while Kid Rock is a more modern member. Aretha Franklin owned a home near the seventh hole in which she is believed to have recorded her 1998 album “A Rose is Still a Rose.” Of course, prominent golfers have called Detroit Golf Club home. After Alec Ross stepped aside from his post as head club pro, he was replaced by another major champion, Horton Smith (1934 and 1936 Masters winner), who held the job from 1946 until his death in 1963. Adding to this club pro legacy was Walter Burkemo, who had won the 1953 PGA Championship at nearby Birmingham Country Club. Meanwhile, in 1986, Detroit mayor Coleman Young made history when he became the club’s first African-American member. While not a golfer, Young applied for a non-golfing membership and hoped his admittance would open the door for more African-Americans in the city. Dennis Archer, an associate justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who would serve as Young’s mayoral successor, followed as a member. Since 2003, Detroit Golf Club has had three different African-American presidents. 3. A flat challenge Two weeks removed from a trip to Scotland, the PGA TOUR is far from the contours of St. Andrews and now visiting the plains of the Midwest. When Detroit Golf Club entered the PGA TOUR rotation in 2019, its standard deviation of terrain change stood at 2.18 feet, edging TPC Louisiana (2.23) for the lowest mark. In other words, Detroit Golf Club is the flattest course on the PGA TOUR. For reference, the highest point at Augusta National Golf Club is 318 feet (No. 1 green) and the lowest point is 170 feet (No. 11 green). That’s a change of 210 feet. The elevation change at Detroit Golf Club from highest point to lowest point is roughly 43 feet. While Donald Ross did apply some undulation to the fairways, the greens do not present the same runoff as Pinehurst No. 2. A century later, Detroit Golf Club holds up as a beautiful piece of property, but it has had its challenges holding up against the best PGA TOUR players in the world. The 2019 event’s cut line of 5-under was the PGA TOUR’s lowest since 2016. Nate Lashley won that year at 25-under. Golf course superintendent Jake Mendoza, who had stints on the staff at Winged Foot and Medinah before taking the Detroit Golf Club gig in 2018, mentioned in 2020 the green speeds might have been conservative in 2019 and expressed an interest in speeding up the surfaces in 2020. The winner’s score dropped to 23-under in 2020 and 18-under in 2021. 4. Traditional test Many old-time American golf courses present some easier holes on the front nine to help guide players into the round. Detroit Golf Club provides scoring opportunities early but also requires players to execute with precision when choosing to be aggressive. The first side of the card is marked by a heavier tree line, with Nos. 6, 7 and 8 representing a trademark stretch on the course. These holes (4, 5 and 6 on the member layout) demand tee shots into tight fairways with undulation running balls off the sides of the short grass. Two-tiered greens await by the flagstick, setting a fine line between one-putt opportunities and three-putt fits. “We don’t have a lot of elevation change out here,” Mendoza told The Detroit News in 2019. “But there’s no flat lie anywhere on those three holes.” No. 4 should also present some theatrics, as the par 5 is listed at a whopping 635 yards. Two precise woods are needed for a chance at reaching the green in two, and an errant tee shot into the trees could have even the longest hitters scrambling for par. Nos. 17 and 18 represent a tale of two mindsets, as the 577-yard, par-5 17th played as Detroit Golf Club’s easiest hole in 2021 (4.589), while the 455-yard, par-4 18th ranked as the second most difficult at 4.135. In total, the front nine played to a 35.04 average last season, with the back nine playing to 35.51. Both nines play to par-36 for the TOUR field. 5. A forgotten Cinderella Ryder Cup In 1937, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team, led by non-playing captain Walter Hagen, went to Southport and Ainsdale Golf Club in England and defeated Great Britain, 8-4, winning the final four singles matches behind Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Ed Dudley and Henry Picard. Two years later, World War II began in Europe and the Ryder Cup would not return until 1947. At least, not officially. Teams on both sides had actually been selected for the 1939 Ryder Cup, with Great Britain canceling two months before the competition. As the story goes, Hagen, who had been captain for all six Ryder Cups and was slated to be captain a seventh time, was bragging at an exhibition in Toledo about how his team would have defeated Great Britain again. Gene Sarazen, who at age 37 was slated to miss the Ryder Cup team for the first time, called out Hagen, saying he could put together a team that could knock off Hagen’s roster. Hagen accepted the challenge and in 1940, Sarazen brought a team of challengers to Oakland Hills, near Detroit. With Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret and Craig Wood on his roster, Sarazen’s team fought gamely but ultimately lost, 7-5. In 1941, this time at Detroit Golf Club, Sarazen bulked up his team, convincing Bobby Jones, who notably never gave up his amateur status, to play. Jones ultimately served as a difference-maker, propelling the challengers to a stunning 8.5-6.5 win. In his highly anticipated singles match, Jones, who retired from all non-Masters majors after 1930, battled Picard, who had recently won the 1938 U.S. Open and 1939 PGA Championship. Jones won, 2 and 1, essentially adding one final legend to his name. Remember D3: The Mighty Ducks, when Gordon Bombay and Ted Orion led the Eden Hall JV hockey team to a win over the varsity team? That’s basically what this was like. This adjusted Ryder Cup format continued in 1942 at Oakland Hills and 1943 at Plum Hollow Country Club, also in the Detroit area, with the U.S. Team defeating the challengers on both occasions. Hagen, who missed out on the reselected team in 1942, actually played with the challengers those two years.

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