Dustin Johnson has one ‘wish’ for PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal
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The Former World No.1 has high hopes for the future – including more major-contending weekends.
Among the serious and not-so-serious reasons the PGA Tour’s finest gave for defecting to LIV Golf, Dustin Johnson remained calm under interrogation from the world’s media.
“I just want to play less golf and make more money,” he shrugged at the time.
Johnson was just a few days short of his 38th birthday when it was confirmed he would be one of Greg Norman’s first big-name signings.
It was arguably the biggest surprise of that first wave of players to defect. Johnson was – and still is – one of the most decorated players still plying a trade having built a resume that boasts 31 wins as a professional, including two majors and six World Golf Championships. Only Tiger Woods has more on that particular front. And only Woods and Norman have spent more time at World No. 1 than Johnson.
Johnson has taken that mentality into LIV Golf, where he has won once in each of the league’s first three seasons.
“I love it,” Johnson tells TG. “I’ve played new golf courses I’ve never seen before.
“With the quality of players on the tour, LIV is very competitive and you have to play unbelievably well to win, especially with us playing three rounds instead of four. You don’t have 18 extra holes to make up mistakes.”
The flipside, though, is that Johnson’s major form has fallen off a cliff. In the last two seasons, the now 40-year-old has carded one top 10, with his next best being a tie for 31st at Royal Troon last time out.
It certainly hasn’t done his confidence any harm, though.
The problem is, while he can play the Masters every year until he gives up, Johnson only has two years left on his US Open exemption, while his invites to The Open and PGA Championship will expire at the end of the upcoming major season.
He remains undeterred.
“I feel like I’ve got a good five years left in me. Five years where I can still really grind away,” he adds.
“It will depend on how much work I put in, but I can win more majors, I’m 100 percent sure of that.
“It would be nice to add a few more.”
Of course, had the golf gods been in a more forgiving mood, Johnson would already have “a few more”. He led by three with 18 to play in the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach, before a final-round 82 allowed Graeme McDowell and several others to overtake him.
A couple of months later, Johnson grounded his club in what he thought was a waste area on the 72nd hole at the PGA Championship. A two-shot penalty there cost him a place in the playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual champion Martin Kaymer.
Then, in 2015, missed out on the US Open again when he three-putted from 12 feet to hand the title to Jordan Spieth.
“Yes, I’ve had a few bad breaks,” he sighs. “But that’s golf.
“I always said to myself, ‘Keep putting yourself in the position to win a major and it will happen.’ When I won the US Open, I was so relieved that I’d finally got over the line.”
And while he’s happy with life on LIV Golf, Johnson says there are “a few events” he misses playing and that it would be “good for the game” if the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – which finances LIV – could get a deal over the line that would see a reunification of the sport.
“Hopefully something can be worked out in the future,” he adds. “I just wish all the best players in the world could play together a few more times a year.
“That would be really cool.”
While the cynics among you might point out that, according to new LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil, that’s already happening, if those with insider knowledge are to be believed, Johnson’s wish may come true sooner than he thinks.
You can read the full interview with Dustin Johnson in latest issue of Today’s Golfer magazine.
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Dustin Johnson wants to see the world's best LIV Golf and PGA Tour competing against each other.
