Hand Dustin Johnson the Saturday New York Times crossword or a worn-out toilet flush valve, you may grow old awaiting a solution.
But present him with any number of the lesser problems that golf may present, he’s supposed to have most of the answers. Just give him a paper clip, some duct tape and an old beat-up range ball, and he’ll whip up something in the mid-60s, easy as can be.
As he kept putting tee balls left and right of their intended landing site Saturday at East Lake, finding overgrown Bermuda, sand, pine straw and in one case the aromatic hazard of a hidden Port-O-Let, Johnson just overloaded on issues. For him and everyone else occupying the top floor of the world ranking, the second round of the Tour Championship turned into a five-sided Rubik’s Cube. There was no complete solution.
How can it be that after shooting an even-par 70 on a day when nearly a quarter of the field shot 66 or lower that Johnson still leads here? It helps that all the right people were floundering a bit, too.
The day began with world’s top four ranked players taking up the top four slots on the leaderboard. The day ended with that esteemed company shooting an aggregate 6 over.
When all the slumping, head-shaking and the unspoken how-can-a-game-I-love-so-much-be-so-cruel expressions were done, Johnson still was in the lead, at 13 under with his FedEx Cup head start factored in.
“It was a tough day on the course, but I managed to scrape it around pretty good,” Johnson said. “This golf course is two different golf courses if you’re playing from the fairway or playing from the rough. Playing from the fairway you can attack the course. You can shoot a good score. Playing from where I did, it’s not so much fun.”
The lineup behind him changed significantly. Up from the depths came Sungjae Im, whose low round of the day, a 64, left him at 12 under. When all above you are stressing out, this is how you gain ground: Im hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation Saturday and has hit 31 of 36 greens in the tournament.
Xander Schauffele, the 2017 Tour Championship winner who rolls out of bed contending at East Lake, shot 65 and moved to 11 under.
By the fact that he didn’t fall quite as far as the other dignitaries, world No. 3 Justin Thomas is at 10 under after shooting 71 on Saturday.
His reaction to the day is one that his peers need to adopt. “Through two rounds and I’m in a great place, so I just need to shrug it off,” Thomas said.
First-round co-leader Jon Rahm took the day’s biggest header. That will happen when you splash one in the water on the par-3 15th on the way to a double bogey, shoot 39 on the back side and finish the day with a 4-over 74. He slipped back to 9 under for the tournament, four back of Johnson’s lead.
“I think it’s one of those days I can’t escape here,” said Rahm, who has finishes of fifth, 23rd, and 12th in three previous Tour Championship appearances. “That’s been my downfall pretty much every time I come. I can’t escape the one day where just nothing goes right, and I can’t really post a score.
“But the mentality is right now. We’ve played two days of the tournament; I’m four back going into the weekend. Anything can happen. I’ve made up larger distances, and certainly not going to give up on this one.”
And what of Rory McIlroy, four back of Johnson and Rahm at the start of the day? When last seen, he was hitting the kind of shot to the par-5 18th to which only East Lake’s most tortured members could relate. From the rough separating fairway from water, McIlroy took aim at the hole 209 yards away with his second shot. He instead hit it maybe 10 yards, an embarrassing gouge for such an accomplished player. He ended up taking a bogey 6 on the hole that ranked second easiest on the day. That pushed him to a 1-over 71, 8 over for the tournament and five back of Johnson.
So long as he misfires off the tee, however, Johnson might well provide plenty of reason to hope for those behind him. He hit only two of 14 fairways, which at East Lake is a sin.
Johnson being Johnson, he could make some hay out of trouble. Hit it into the rough on No. 3 and still make birdie with a 37-foot putt. Go left of left on the next hole, bump it out into the fairway, hit an indifferent approach and still save par with a 31-foot putt. Drive it into the fairway bunker on the difficult par-4 eighth, hit short of the green and hole out the pitch shot for birdie.
But eventually, the tee-shot miscues will get you here. Not coincidentally, Johnson went straight from the 18th hole Saturday evening to the practice tee to work on the driver.
“Obviously I’m still in a good position, but I’ve got to hit it in the fairway over the next two days if I want a chance to win this,” he said. “I feel like everything else is really good. I feel like I’m swinging my irons well. I’m rolling it really well.”
He seems to still like his chances for solving this particular riddle in the next two days.
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