Dustin Johnson Admits How Much His Falling Down Stairs At Augusta Set Him Back

One of Dustin Johnson’s best-known attributes is his ability to quickly forget negative situations on the golf course. Remember how well he handled the cluster-F rules fiasco at the 2016 U.S. Open? He’s the Alfred E. Newman of the PGA Tour (“What, me worry?”).

So, it came as a surprise when he admitted yesterday how much that slip and fall downstairs prior to The Masters affected his game. Golfworld.com’s Ryan Herrington has the details.

“Winning in L.A. and then Mexico and Match Play, all three starts in a row, [I was] obviously playing probably the best golf of my career,” Johnson said. “And it wasn’t like they were back-to-back weeks, there was a lot of space in between, so I really felt like I had my game really dialed in.”

Any momentum was halted when he slipped on the steps in his rental home in Augusta the day before the start of the Masters. Only now, though, does Johnson appreciate just how long it took him to get back to his former form.

“Probably for a good five months. It took a long time to recover from it, for sure. … But that kind of threw me off there, I struggled for awhile after that.”

The results would seem to confirm that. It wasn’t until late summer that Johnson was in contention again, winning again in a playoff over Jordan Spieth at the Northern Trust. While disappointed that he let another title slip away in the fall at the WGC-HSBC Champions, with a final-round stumble, Johnson believes 2018 is setting up nicely.

“I’m seeing signs of I’m hitting the shots, they’ve got the right patterns, and I’m hitting the shots that I’m seeing,” Johnson said. “It’s just more my cut’s starting to come back where I’m hitting it with irons and with the driver. Where every shot’s starting to cut again. So that’s pretty much it. Just need a little more practice, need to really work on the wedges here the next few weeks to get ready for the big part of the season.”

Meanwhile, while practicing at the Kapalua Plantation course, DJ was measuring wedge shots with Trackman. His goal was to hit it 115-yards. The three measured shots went 115, 115.2 and 115.3. That’s the definition of dialed in folks.

However, he did admit that his putting is currently the largest question mark. It should be a fascinating week as the season officially kicks off today with some prime time golf.