Tiger Woods’ game makes a big leap five weeks ahead of Augusta

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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The dreams of a green jacket are gone for most for another year but the chance to win a pretty damn cool plaid one is here right now. The motivation to get right back on the horse is strong in many – particularly those who went so close at Augusta National. In the field this week at Hilton Head are four players who finished within two of Tiger Woods last week … plus a plethora of other stars. Harbour Town Golf Links brings us some old school precision golf – more of a rarity these days as length usually prevails. Here, you must throttle it back. You must pick your spots and hit them. Welcome to the RBC Heritage. THE FLYOVER  The par-4 472-yard 18th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links can be deceptively difficult. The fairway is actually one of the easiest to his on the PGA TOUR thanks to a widening in the landing zone (94.13% since 2007) but the approach gets your attention. It’s played over par the last three seasons despite almost everyone coming in from the short grass. Your second shot has to deal with carrying the marsh and a bunker guarding the green and of course you are right off the ocean making the wind judgement imperative. LANDING ZONE At just 332 yards the par-4 9th becomes a critical hole to make your move. Last season only three of the par-4s on the course averaged under par and this was clearly the easiest of them playing at 3.743. If you want to get at Harbour Town you better have an effective plan for this hole. Here’s a look at where the tee shots landed last season. You can see the variety of attack between driving it or laying up. WEATHER CHECK From PGA TOUR meteorologist Stewart Williams: “High pressure will dominate the weather over the next several days with warmer temperatures expected with highs in the upper 70s Wednesday and Thursday. An approaching cold front will produce strong winds ahead of a line of possibly severe thunderstorms Friday afternoon before pushing east late in the day. Drier, windy and cooler conditions can be expected behind the front Saturday with highs struggling to reach the upper 60s. Warmer temperatures return Sunday for the final round.â€� For the latest weather news from Hilton Head, South Carolina, check out PGATOUR.COM’s Weather Hub. SOUND CHECK I wouldn’t show up to a property that I don’t think I could win at. I think my game suits a lot of different style of courses. This property historically suits sort of a shorter hitter that’s very precise, putts well and wedges it pretty well. You can sneak a few extra drivers off the tee, but you don’t really have to. BY THE NUMBERS 273 – Last season, Harbour Town Golf Links had the second shortest Driving Distance (All Drives) average of any course, with the field averaging just 273 yards off the tee. Just 11.12% of drives went over 300 yards off the tee, marking the lowest percentage of drives over 300 yards of any course during the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season. 1802 – FedExCup points earned by Luke Donald at RBC Heritage since 2009. He has never won. 7 – Number of RBC Heritage winners who have gone on to make the TOUR Championship in the FedExCup era (2007). 75.76 – Percentage of greens hit this season by former champion Matt Kuchar. He leads the PGA TOUR. 6 – Number of players in the field with double-digit PGA TOUR wins: Davis Love III (21), Dustin Johnson (20), Ernie Els (19), Jim Furyk (17), Zach Johnson (12) and Jordan Spieth (11). Two players can join that group this week: Matt Kuchar and Brandt Snedeker each have nine wins. SCATTERSHOTS  One of Pete Dye’s signature designs, Harbour Town Golf Links features the smallest greens on the PGA TOUR and remains in the record book as the venue for the fewest putts in a four-round tournament when David Frost needed only 92 putts to complete the 2005 RBC Heritage. The average green size is 3700 square feet. Bryson DeChambeau returns to Harbour Town, a venue with special significance in his PGA TOUR career. In his professional debut at the 2016 RBC Heritage, DeChambeau finished in a tie for fourth and in 2018, missed out on the Satoshi Kodaira-Si Woo Kim playoff by one stroke. Since last year’s near miss, DeChambeau has won four times on the PGA TOUR and enters the week 18th in the FedExCup standings. He also managed the first ace of his career on Sunday at the Masters. Five of the top-10 finishers from Augusta National will compete in the RBC Heritage: Dustin Johnson (T2), Xander Schauffele (T2), Francesco Molinari (T5), Webb Simpson (T5) and Patrick Cantlay (T9) are all in the field. Defending champion Satoshi Kodaira was a surprise winner last season given his form and once again he comes into the event far from at his best. But a year ago he led the field in Proximity to the Hole (29’6â€�) averaging nearly six feet closer than the field average of 35’ 5â€� and 28 feet closer than the field on approaches from 200-225 yards. RBC Heritage concession stands run differently than most tournaments. Food is donated by non-profit organizations and then resold with profits benefitting eight local charities. In advance of tournament week, a bake-off is held among non-profits to determine which organization will benefit from onsite cookie sales. In 2019, Pocket Full of Sunshine – a non-profit that helps employee adults with special needs – won the contest.

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It started with a tweet. Curtis Strange was up late one night at his home in Morehead City on the North Carolina coast. He couldn’t stop thinking about the destruction left by Hurricane Florence last month. Trees down everywhere. Floodwaters that still hadn’t receded. Blue tarps covering homes that no longer had roofs. Families that had lost absolutely everything. Strange felt helpless. “Honestly, I’ve been through many hurricanes, but this one was the worst for me,â€� he says. “You want to help because you have power, you have a house, a roof above your head and so many don’t.â€� So he took to Twitter to tell people he was going to use his house as a distribution center. Send cleaning supplies and toiletries and paper towels and rubber gloves. Strange would make sure the boxes got to the relief effort. Please just open your hearts and help. Strange even included his home address in the tweet. “My son gave me hell the next day,â€� Strange says with a chuckle. “I said, you know, it’ll take you 60 seconds to find everything about me on Google. So what difference does it make?â€� Three days later, boxes started arriving. Sometimes a dozen a day, sometimes 20 or more. All of which Strange loaded onto the bed of his truck or into the back of the SUV and took to the distribution center at the First United Methodist Church. “It’s been overwhelming,â€� Strange says. Almost every time a shipment came, the two-time U.S. Open champion would take pictures of the boxes left on his front porch and tweet it out. It was his way of saying thanks to the many, many  strangers who heeded his call.  Strange and his wife Sarah actually weren’t in North Carolina when the storm hit. Six months earlier they had made plans with friends to go trout fishing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So they “battened down the hatches,â€� Strange says, and headed west – and not too long afterward mandatory evacuation orders came for Morehead City. “It was hard to relax and enjoy yourself when you’re watching this thing bear right down on your community,â€� he says. Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, which is about 90 miles south of Morehead City, at 7:14 a.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 14. The unwelcome visitor, which had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, lingered for days, sucking up moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and moving slowly east, causing massive flooding across the eastern part of the state even weeks later. Strange wasn’t able to get home until the following Tuesday. All the nearby airports were closed so he had to fly into Charlotte and then take a circuitous route to get home, finding back roads that would let him skirt the many flooded areas. While Strange and his wife were in Wyoming, friends sent photos of their home and it appeared to have escaped relatively unscathed. As it turned out, there was significant water damage to the ceilings and drywall. Strange knows he was lucky, though. “Two houses from me, they’ve gutted the entire house and so mattresses, their sofas, their chairs, their belongings are in a pile of rubble in front,â€� he says. “That hits home, when you don’t have a place to lay down.â€� The fury of the storm became strikingly evident the day after Strange got back from Wyoming when he ventured over to Morehead City Country Club. “There were 30-inch diameter oak trees or bigger and pine trees that were actually twisted because tornadoes coming through there,â€� Strange says. “The debris was just like a war zone. … “Mother Nature, man, she wins every time, she really does.â€� Strange and his wife eventually canceled a trip to Paris for the Ryder Cup. The 63-year-old, who played on five teams and captained the 2002 U.S. squad, says there were just too many things to take care of at his house where workmen were visiting almost daily. “You can’t go over there and enjoy yourself and be a part of something like that knowing that you have mildew growing at home,â€� he says. As he got involved in the relief effort, Strange marveled at the first responders and other volunteers who saved so many lives and are now helping to put them back together again. “It’s been so overwhelming and people forget about where do these people stay?â€� Strange says. “They’re sleeping in the fire station, on the concrete floor. They have cots put up in these kind of homes away from home, tented villages. “These people work in 19-, 20-hour days to get power on and help people and it’s been amazing.â€� Some semblance of normalcy is slowly beginning to return to the eastern part of North Carolina. But this is just the beginning. It will be months before homes are repaired and rebuilt. Although boxes occasionally still arrive, the makeshift distribution center at the Strange household is now closed. Instead, he refers people who want to help to the Red Cross and Salvation Army. When told he should be proud of what he’s done, Strange doesn’t hesitate. “I didn’t do anything,â€� he says. “I put out a tweet and people are very, very generous and I can’t thank them enough. “They’ve helped so many people. They just don’t know how much a box of supplies, how far it goes. And I think we all think the box, I just won’t do it. It’d be a box. “Well, it all helps and when you start piling them up in the church and see what they’re doing — it really makes a difference.â€�

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