D. Johnson wins Canadian Open

By
Mo Yoshimoto,

By
Mo Yoshimoto

Published October 4, 2018 04:04 PM

RBC Canadian Open

Oakville, Ontario

Playing out of the final twosome, overnight quad-leader and RBC Ambassador Dustin Johnson enjoyed a 6-under-par 32-34=66 in Sunday’s weather-delayed final round at Glen Abbey Golf Club for a 72-hole tally of 23-under 265, good for a three-shot victory over Whee Kim (69) and playing competitor Byeong Hun An (69) and his 19^th PGA TOUR title in 235 events.

Final Leaderboard (pre-tourney odds outright):

1- (-23) Dustin Johnson (11/2)

2- (-20) Whee Kim (150/1)

2- (-20) Byeong Hun An (45/1)

4- (-19) Keegan Bradley (45/1)

5- (-17) Abraham Ancer (125/1)

Before we get to Johnson, the World No. 1 and FedExCup leader, let’s take a quick look at a South Korean resurgence.

For some time now, the ladies have dominated the LPGA – both in wins and sheer number of players – while their counterparts on the men’s circuit have taken a back seat. Kevin Na’s long-awaited (second) TOUR win at The Greenbrier three weeks ago (as a 45/1 outright), was South Korea’s first win for the men since Si Woo Kim (400/1) at the 2017 PLAYERS 14 months ago. It appears to have opened the flood gates.

Na was followed the very next week by Michael Kim’s maiden title at the John Deere (250/1), and two players this week, Whee (150/1) and Byeong (45/1), both in search of their first wins, came runner-up with a pair of Sunday 69s after being two (of four) overnight co-leaders. Coincidentally, Whee and Byeong both record their second runners-up of the season, both after losing sudden-death playoffs earlier, and each notch their third career runner-up.

Speaking of resurgence, Keegan Bradley closed with a day-low, bogey-free 8-under 64 for solo 4^th, four back, while another up-and-comer, Mexico’s Abraham Ancer claimed solo 5^th, six adrift, after a closing 67. Bradley is up to 44^th in the FEC standings with his fourth top 10 of the season while Ancer, also with four top 10s, climbed 22 places to 79^th. Now, back to the champion, who was the class of the 155-man field.

*Note: The field was one player short. Andres Romero got in as an alternate but was a late scratch (no reason) and there were no other alternates to replace him.

Johnson, a pre-tourney 11/2 fave outright, bags his third win of the season in 14 starts, matching Bubba Watson for the season lead.

In those 14 starts, he’s been a 54-hole leader/co-leader six times and this is his third conversion (FedEx St. Jude, won by 6; Sentry TOC, won by 8), failing to convert at the U.S. Open, AT&T Pebble Beach, and the WGC-HSBC.

Johnson, the 2016 Player of the Year, has now led or co-led 15 times this season after any round, which matches 2017 POY Justin Thomas’ (leading) total from last season. His closest chaser is currently Beau Hossler with seven.

The North Palm Beach, Florida, resident wins the final Canadian Open held at Glen Abbey, which hosted this past week for the 30^th time. Next season, the tourney moves to a June date, the week before the U.S. Open, and to Hamilton G&CC, which last played host in 2012 – and at various other times dating to the early-1900s.

What is Going On?!:

Note: This was the final edition of the FedEx St. Jude Classic as we know it, next season becoming a WGC event (at TPC Southwind) with a date change.

DJ’s last win, seven weeks and three starts ago, came with the above note attached. This week, he wins the RBC – final at Glen Abbey with a date change – and next week he goes for his sixth overall WGC title at the Bridgestone Invitational, which by the way, is the final one at Firestone CC, moving to Memphis next season, with a date change. #AlrightyThen

Johnson at the Canadian Open:

Johnson wins in his sixth try after runner-up finishes in 2016 and 2013, both at Glen Abbey.

Starts: 6

Cuts Made: 4

WD: 1 (2008 debut)

Top 25s: 4

Top 10s: 4 (three straight)

Top 5s: 3

Wins: 1

FUN FACT: Johnson’s other top 10, a T8 last year, came after being paired with eventual champ Jhonattan Vegas for the first two rounds. Vegas, going for a 3-peat, finished T29 this week on 11-under 277 (69-70-68-70), 12 adrift.

How Johnson Won the RBC:

After kicking off in 68-66-65, Johnson began T1 with three others, including Kim and An, and carded seven birdies against a lone bogey on 10 (of 14) fairways and 16 greens in regulation. He gained 2.667 strokes off-the-tee and 3.902 tee-to-green, taking 30 total putts.

For the week, Johnson tallied three eagles and 24 birdies versus seven bogeys and ranked No. 1 in a bunch of stats, including: SG: Off-the-Tee (7.540), SG: Tee-to-Green (14.223), Birdie or Better (37.50%) and the All-Around, and was T1 in Driving Distance (all drives) at 318.0 yards and 6^th in Driving Accuracy for No. 1 in Total Driving. He was also T1 in GIR (79.17%) as well as Proximity to Hole (25’9”). See his full #lethal stats at the bottom.

Johnson’s Position by Round:

R1: T24 (5 back)

R2: T6 (3 back)

R3: T1

After an up-and-down 68 in R1, which included four bogey-5s, he went blemish-free 66 in R2 and day-tying-low 65 in R3.

R4: Johnson opened with two straight birdies to separate. He built a 3-shot cushion (over Kim and An) with birdie-3 at 8 from 12’4” – his long of the day – and was in the fairway at the par-4 ninth when play was suspended for 1 hour, 46 minutes due to lightning.

Johnson added birdie-3 at 11, suffered his lone drop at the par-3 12^th (failed scramble), now leading Bradley by just one. Bradley, nine groups ahead, was posting the clubhouse target of 19-under.

The 34-year-old, sauntering about like he does, bounced back with birdie-4 at 13 (from 10’9”) and added two more birdie-4s at 16 and 18 for the final margin.

Through 39 (non-team) events this season:

12 winners were in their 20s

22 were in their 30s (Johnson: 34)

5 were in their 40s

Johnson’s Season:

This was Johnson’s 14^th start of the season and 12^th top 25. He is the season leader in top-10 finishes with nine, four in his last five starts, and one clear of Brian Harman and Justin Rose, who have eight apiece, both idle this week.

Starts: 14

Cuts Made: 13

Top 25s: 12

Top 10s: 9

Top 5s: 6

Wins: 3

Season Form: 1-MC-3-1-8-17-16-10-59-7-16-2-1-2

FEC Rank: 1^st (no change)

OWGR: 1^st (no change)

FUN FACT: Johnson has six top 5s this season, all 1^st- 2^nd- or 3^rd-place finishes.

FUN FACT: Johnson, who arrived off a MC at The Open last week, is the 29^th straight winner this season with either 0 or 1 week off prior to their wins. In total, 35 (of 39) non-team event winners fall into this category. #NoLongLayoffsPlease

FUN FACT: Through 39 (non-team) events this season, Johnson is just the fifth player to MC in the start prior to winning: Michael Kim (John Deere); Bubba Watson (Travelers); Rory McIlroy (API); Ryan Armour (Sanderson Farms).

Odds Favorite(s) Outright:

Dating to the beginning of the 2016-17 season (133 events), the pre-tourney fave/co-fave has now won 10 times.

This Season:

39 tournaments

4 pre-tourney fave/co-faves won:

Dustin Johnson: 11/2 (Canadian Open)

Dustin Johnson: 6/1 (St. Jude)

Jon Rahm: 8/1 (CareerBuilder)

Justin Thomas: 15/2 (CJ CUP)

As mentioned, Johnson arrived off a MC at last week’s Open Championship as a 10/1 fave, which was his first start in five weeks after a 3^rd at the U.S. Open. #Rust

He was the first World No. 1 to miss the cut at The Open since Luke Donald in 2011 but had entered the week off six straight top-25 finishes, which was tied with Rose for the then-current-longest, top-25 streak of the season. (Rose now has seven straight).

22 (of 39) winners this season had a top-25 finish the start prior (56.4%):

Johnson? No: CUT (The Open)

12 (of 39) winners this season had a top-10 finish the start prior (30.7%)

Johnson? No: CUT (The Open)

Johnson’s Career:

Overall, Johnson has now recorded 86 top-10 finishes in 235 events with 37 of those top 3s.

With the win on Maui in January, the South Carolina native had previously extended his run of 11 straight seasons with at least one win, the longest active streak on TOUR, and has now recorded three wins or more in three straight seasons, becoming the first to accomplish that since Tiger Woods in 2009 – who did it too many times to list here.

Starts: 235

Cuts Made: 190 (80.8%)

WD: 8 (3.4%)

Top 25s: 125 (53.1%)

Top 10s: 86 (36.5%)

Top 3s: 37 (15.7%)

Wins: 19 (8.0%)

Breakdown of Johnson’s 19 TOUR wins:

18 stroke play
10 as 54-hole leader/co-leader (three of these, tourney reduced to 54 holes)

Courses:

Par 73: 2 wins
Par 72: 7 wins
Par 71: 5 wins
Par 70: 5 wins

Dating to his first (and lone) major championship victory at the 2016 U.S. Open (Oakmont, PA), Johnson has now won 10 times in his last 42 starts for a win percentage of 23.8% during that span.

This was his third victory outside the U.S., joining WGC wins in Mexico (2017) and China (2014). Looking ahead, DJ is a 7/1 fave at the WGC-Bridgestone, which he won in 2016, one start after winning the U.S. Open. He also posted consecutive wins in consecutive starts in 2017, winning three times in three starts at the Genesis, WGC-Mexico and WGC-Match Play.

Field Scoring Average:

This was the 109^th Canadian Open, 30^th overall and fourth consecutive at Glen Abbey:

Scorecard Yardage: 7,253

Par: 72 (35-37)

Cumulative scoring averages:

R1: 70.38; contested over two days

R2: 70.82

R3: 70.35

R4: 69.90

Total: 70.44

Johnson: 68-66-65-66 for 16.450 SG: Total

Draw:

A total of 78 players (77 pros, 1 amateur) from a field of 150 pros and 5 amateurs made the 36-hole cut of 4-under 140:

35 (of 78) EARLY/late

43 (of 77) LATE/early; 1 WD (Sangmoon Bae); 1 DQ (Wesley Bryan)

11 players finished in the top 10:

EARLY/late (3):

Dustin Johnson (Won); Andrew Putnam (T8); Joel Dahmen (T8)

LATE/early (8):

Whee Kim (T2); Byeong Hun An (T2); Keegan Bradley (4^th); Abraham Ancer (5^th); Tommy Fleetwood (T6); Danny Lee (T6); Brandt Snedeker (T8); Mackenzie Hughes (T8)

FUN FACT: Hughes, low Canadian pro, wins the Rivermead Cup for a second straight year after a T32 during last season’s rookie campaign.

FUN FACT: Playing on a sponsor invite, Canada’s Chris Crisologo was the only amateur (of five) to make the cut, finishing T45 on 9-under 279 (68-69-73-69) in his TOUR debut.

FUN FACT: Co-runner-up An was low debutant (of 35) on 20-under 268 (66-67-66-69) while England’s Tommy Fleetwood takes honorable mention with T6 on 16-under 272 (66-71-68-67).

28 (of 39 non-team) tourneys this season with a traditional draw:

Winners:

EARLY/late: 15 (Johnson)

LATE/early: 13

Leader/co-leaders by Round:

R1: Robert Garrigus (finished T22): 0-for-5 as 18-hole leader/co-leader

R2: Kevin Tway (T17): 0-for-1 as 36-hole leader/co-leader

R3: Dustin Johnson (Won): 10-for-18 as 54-hole leader/co-leader

R3: Byeong Hun An (T2): 0-for-2

R3: Whee Kim (T2): 0-for-1

R3: Kevin Tway (T17): 0-for-1

FUN FACT: Johnson is the first 54-hole leader/co-leader to win the Canadian Open since RBC’s Brandt Snedeker in 2013 (Glen Abbey), who was also a pre-tourney fave (12/1). Snedeker finished T8 this week on 15-under 273 (68-70-68-67).

Low Rounds:

R1: 63: Robert Garrigus

R2: 63: Keegan Bradley, Ben Silverman (career low)

R3: 65: Dustin Johnson, Abraham Ancer, Tyler Duncan

R4: 64: Keegan Bradley

Bogey-free Rounds:

R1: (12): Robert Garrigus (63); Ben Crane (66); Ian Poulter (66); George Cunningham (66); Andrew Putnam (67); Zac Blair (67); Seamus Power (68); Nick Taylor (68); James Hahn (68); Nick Watney (69); Brian Stuard (70); Tony Finau (71)