SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — For four holes and one golden hour of golf just before twilight Thursday, Dustin Johnson looked a lot like the player who won the U.S. Open a decade ago.
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Just as quickly, he looked like the same sort of mystery he’s been since leaving the PGA Tour four years ago.
Four straight birdies over those four holes briefly put the captain of LIV Golf’s Aces team in a tie for the lead at the U.S. Open. Then, a missed opportunity on the par-5 fifth and a sloppy three-putt for double-bogey on No. 6 dropped him four shots behind Wyndham Clark when the first round was suspended because of darkness.
“Feels really good,” Johnson said as darkness descended Thursday night. “Finally the last couple months I feel like the game is starting to come back into form and swinging it really nicely. Yeah, looking forward to seeing what I can do.”
Johnson walked away from Shinnecock in a seven-way tie for second with three holes to finish Friday to close out the first round. His first shot when he returned was a 3 1/2-foot putt for a birdie — he made it — on the par-3 seventh. He finished the round at 4-under 66, alone in second place, only two shots behind Clark.
It’s an unfamiliar spot of late for the player who held the world’s top ranking for 135 weeks between 2017 and 2021 and now finds himself in the mix in a major for the first time in at least three years.
The timing is good. Johnson’s 10-year exemption to the U.S. Open, earned when he won at Oakmont in 2016, expires after this year. His other major victory — at the November playing of the COVID-delayed 2020 Masters — also feels like it comes from a different era in golf.
And, in fact, it does.
Back in 2010, Johnson was the talk of the majors. He held the lead after three rounds at Pebble Beach only to play the second and third holes in 5 over in a memorable U.S. Open meltdown. Two months later, he grounded his club in a bunker he thought was a waste area at Whistling Straits, costing him two shots and a chance at a playoff at the PGA.
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Only a matter of time, golf fans thought, before he finally broke through. In 2015, he three-putted on the 18th green at Chambers Bay and Jordan Spieth beat him at that U.S. Open by a shot.
It made Johnson’s wins at Oakmont the next year and Augusta four years later seem like feel-good affairs. When he signed a contract worth a reported nine figures with LIV, his move felt like one of the biggest blows to the PGA Tour.
But while other LIV players — Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau — have won majors since they left, Johnson, now 41, has basically been an afterthought.
He’s missed six cuts in the 14 majors since he left. His best finish was a tie for 10th at the U.S. Open that Clark won in 2023 at LA Country Club. The last time Johnson led at the end of a U.S. Open round was in 2018 — here at Shinnecock — but Koepka overtook him. The last time Johnson led at the end of a round in a major was 2020 in Augusta.
He was listed as a 200-1 long shot to win this week.
But in this round, Johnson was paired with Clark and the two former champions seemed to feed off each other. After Johnson hit drives of 403 and 330 yards for his third and fourth straight birdies, he and Clark were tied at 4-under par as they left the fourth green.
Johnson hit his first 11 fairways. On the par-5 fifth, he was pin high after two shots but a middling chip and a miss from 7 feet ended his chance at a fifth straight bridie. Clark made eagle there.
Johnson responded by missing his first fairway of the day, then three-putted for the double that dropped him four out of the lead.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
