{"id":1510,"date":"2016-09-21T16:43:26","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T21:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.golfballs.com\/?p=1510"},"modified":"2025-02-17T10:29:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T16:29:42","slug":"2016-us-open-djs-first-title-and-other-memorable-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/2016-us-open-djs-first-title-and-other-memorable-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 US Open: DJ&#8217;s First Title and Other Memorable Moments"},"content":{"rendered":" Dustin Johnson Wins 2016 U.S. Open, image: Gannett\n<p>It was as if the hand of golf brought with it a giant eraser to western Pennsylvania for the 2016 U.S. Open. Let\u2019s take a look at just some of things that got scrubbed away this past Father\u2019s Day at Oakmont Country Club\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dustin Johnson\u2019s Tortured Relationship with the Game\u2019s Majors<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dustin Johnson has more talent oozing from his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/Golf-Bags\/Catalog.html?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2016usopenrecap62916&amp;utm_content=bags&amp;t=blog\" target=\"_blank\">golf bag<\/a> than possibly anyone not named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/player-spotlight-series-rory-mcilroy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rory McIlroy<\/a>. He had won at least one PGA tournament in each of the previous eight years heading into 2016, and piled up 11 Top 10 finishes in a major championship \u2013 though never winning one. His failures were well chronicled, a rich stew of self-inflicted meltdowns and bizarre circumstances that bordered on the conspiratorial. The most recent was his famed three-putt on the 18<sup>th<\/sup> hole of the 2015 U.S. Open:<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YvPO7yLt-Yc\" height=\"450\" width=\"800\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"border: none;\" title=\"video\"><\/iframe><\/center>Johnson entered the final round of the U.S. Open a healthy four strokes behind leader Shane Lowry, and facing an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/11-things-to-know-about-oakmonts-history-with-the-u-s-open\/\" target=\"_blank\">Oakmont course<\/a> that the USGA had purposely set up to be extra difficult after finally drying out from a monsoon on Thursday. Pins were tucked in corners and on top of ridges, and greens were triple-cut to increase their already legendary speed. It didn\u2019t seem a day for low scoring but Johnson, as he is wont to do, simply overpowered the course. He didn\u2019t hit more than a wedge approach until the 194-yard, par-three 6th hole.<\/p>\n<p>By the time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/player-spotlight-series-dustin-johnson\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dustin Johnson<\/a> reached the back nine he had the lead, and his past failures were dutifully recounted by the Fox television broadcast. But instead of backing up and giving the media fodder for next year, Johnson built on his lead. On hole 16 he buried a nine-foot par putt, and wiped away memories of that three-putt from 12 feet on the final day at Chambers Bay last year. On the 313-yard 17<sup>th<\/sup>, Johnson stayed with his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/Golf-Clubs\/Drivers.html?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=2016usopenrecap62916&amp;utm_content=drivers&amp;t=blog\" target=\"_blank\">driver<\/a> and put it in the Big Mouth bunker on the right side of the green. Where Jason Day had made double bogey from the same place earlier in the day, Johnson scraped it out and made par.<\/p>\n<p>On the home hole, a 6-iron \u2013 the equal of any approach that has ever been hit by a leader on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open \u2013 completed the victory. Dustin Johnson has permanently been removed from the list of golfers frustrated in their quest for a major championship. With his major slate erased, he may well win a fistful in the coming years, just as Phil Mickelson did when he notched his first majors win in his early 30s.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5UhL6s5z6Mk\" height=\"450\" width=\"800\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"border: none;\" title=\"video\"><\/iframe><\/center><strong>Jordan Spieth\u2019s Ascent as a \u201cGenerational Golfer\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/player-spotlight-series-jordan-spieth\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Spieth<\/a> told anyone who would listen, even as he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/spieth-wins-hyundai-toc-off-to-roaring-start-in-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\">waxing the field in the year\u2019s kick-off event at the Tournament of Champions<\/a>, that he didn\u2019t expect to be able to repeat what he accomplished in 2015. He was right. With Johnson\u2019s victory, Spieth is no longer the defending champion for any of golf\u2019s four majors. Oakmont is a course where the insanely difficult greens typically favor the best putters. But with Spieth finishing 59th in driving accuracy and 57th in greens hit in regulation, even his otherworldly putting could accomplish only so much. He finished in a tie for 37th.<\/p>\n<p>There is more talk these days about Spieth\u2019s slow play than his chances to break Jack Nicklaus\u2019s record of 18 majors. Furthermore, his anointed partners in today\u2019s \u201cBig Three\u201d were equally noticeable in their absence from the leaderboard. At times during the tournament, it seemed both McIlroy and Day were about to batter Johnny Miller\u2019s scoring record at Oakmont, but they ultimately went off the tracks. McIlroy didn\u2019t even survive until the weekend, as did Big Three wannabe, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/player-spotlight-series-rickie-fowler\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rickie Fowler<\/a>. Johnson\u2019s win in dominating fashion makes it awfully tough to talk about a Big Three without including him in the conversation. These are all tremendous golfers and there are certainly big trophies waiting for them in the future, but for now comparison to the likes of Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player have cooled. Good-bye 2015.<\/p>\n<p><strong>USGA\u2019s \u2018Big Bogey&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Golf is the ultimate niche sport. The only two days of the year when the game can expect to grab the attention of non-golfing television viewers are Masters Sunday and U.S. Open Sunday on Father\u2019s Day. This year the USGA was gifted with a young star hitting drives further than anyone ever has in a U.S. Open &#8211; the ideal role model to attract potential golfers to the game.<\/p>\n<p>But USGA officials instead decided to shift the focus to the arcane rules that befuddle even the professionals. After a kerfuffle on the fifth green over whether Johnson\u2019s ball had moved ever so slightly before a putt &#8211; a ruling that had already been made and resolved on the course &#8211; the USGA announced to a national television audience an hour later that the entire incident would be reviewed after the round.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of celebrating the championship golf on display, the final two hours of the television broadcast was devoted to whether a player hitting 350-yard drives on the course would have his title stripped by a bunch of guys in suits. Lucky for golf, Dustin Johnson rendered the matter moot after all the joy had been sucked out of his win of redemption. For good measure however, the USGA did dock Johnson a stroke to shave his four-stroke win to three &#8211; and in the process announcing to the world that it considered its new champion a liar for insisting he didn\u2019t cause his ball to move, and for not calling a penalty stroke on himself as runner-up Lowry had done on Saturday. And then they publicly punished themselves the next day, stating that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.golfchannel.com\/news\/golf-central-blog\/usgas-davis-clearly-we-made-big-bogey\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cclearly we made a big bogey\u201d<\/a> in handling the situation. So much for the game of honor.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1513\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/USGA-Executive-Director-Mike-Davis-after-the-2016-U.S.-Open.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1513\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1513\" alt=\"USGA Executive Director Mike Davis after the 2016 U.S. Open, image: golfchannel.com\" src=\"https:\/\/www.golfballs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/USGA-Executive-Director-Mike-Davis-after-the-2016-U.S.-Open.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" data-id=\"1513\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1513\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">USGA Executive Director Mike Davis after the 2016 U.S. Open, image: golfchannel.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The horrible look for golf was compounded by a unanimous condemnation by the game\u2019s top players on social media. Even Nicklaus himself, on hand at Oakmont and wearing a USGA badge around his neck, congratulated Johnson by saying, \u201cI thought what you did with all that crap [the USGA] threw at you was pretty good.\u201d Yes, plenty was erased in golf this past weekend. Let\u2019s hope one of things that wasn\u2019t wiped away was future golfers considering the game.<\/p>\n<p>What we can take away from the 2016 U.S. Open was that what should\u2019ve been a wonderful and well-deserved first major victory for Dustin Johnson turned into a few things that weren\u2019t so wonderful: deluge rains, brutally difficult greens and a USGA fumble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was as if the hand of golf brought with it a giant eraser to western Pennsylvania for the 2016 U.S. Open. Let\u2019s take a look at just some of things that got scrubbed&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,4,194],"tags":[594,593,66,62,608,591,41,56,609,587,589,603,242,588,439],"class_list":["post-1510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-news","category-pga-tour-2","tag-2016-u-s-open","tag-2016-us-open","tag-dustin-johnson","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-oakmont-country-clubs","tag-oakmont-golf-country-club","tag-rickie-fowler","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-shane-lowry","tag-u-s-open","tag-u-s-open-golf","tag-united-states-golf-association","tag-us-open","tag-us-open-golf","tag-usga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1510"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4465,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1510\/revisions\/4465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}