LOS ANGELES — Dustin Johnson had just rolled in a 16-footer for birdie on No. 18 Friday to climb back to even par for the day, and it must have felt like he set the course record.
A fist pump was followed by a big smile and fist bumps all the way from the green to scoring tent, where he caught up with his agent, David Winkle.
“That was a gut punch,” Winkle said.
“I know,” DJ answered. “But to battle back after that … it could have gone either way.”
Johnson is not just happy to be playing on the weekend at the 2023 U.S. Open, he’s thrilled to be within striking distance at 6 under, or as he says, “in a good spot with 36 holes to go.”
Because this round, this championship, all could have gone sideways about 30 minutes in on Friday when Johnson took that punch to gut: a quadruple-bogey 8 at the second hole, to drop to 2 under.
Johnson’s entire weekend depended on how he would recover.
“To battle back and get it back to even par for the day … still right in the mix going into the weekend, definitely proud of the way I came back and finished off the round,” Johnson said.
And his recovery started with the very next shot, a 300-yard drive to the middle of the fairway on the par-4 third hole that led to a 14-footer dropping in from the side door for the most important birdie of his first two days.
How important was the tee shot on No. 3 after Johnson was beating himself up on that green-to-tee walk?
The most important of the day, he said.
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“Hitting a good shot and just getting settled back down after making an 8 …” he said. “Definitely wasn’t too thrilled with myself walking off that green.”
That hole was in such contrast to No. 2, a 490-yard par 4 that at one point Friday was playing as the eighth-hardest hole on the LA Country Club’s North Course with an average score of 4.2.
But a quad? Besides a bunch of bogeys, the hole had seen one double other than Johnson’s snowman.
Johnson was trying to recall his worst shots of the hole and stopped after saying he “chunked” his bunker shot and then “chunked” the next one and “skulled” the next one.
“Everything that you could do wrong, I did wrong,” he said.
The barranca bites back.
Dustin Johnson cards a quad on No. 2. #USOpen pic.twitter.com/naWYKQETQZ
— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 16, 2023
The bright side, “Didn’t really hit that bad of a drive.” Even though it caught the bunker.
It all…
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