Dustin Johnson likes to play golf fast, so you’ve got to believe he likes the pace of play this week at The Tour Championship, where there are only 30 players in 15 twosomes. He finished his round with Matt Kuchar, in the final group Thursday, in 4 hours.
It still didn’t appear fast enough for Dustin, who doesn’t take practice swings just before he hits and spends little time over his ball before striking it. He even appeared to play at a faster pace than normal Thursday. Even his girlfriend, Amanda Carter, concurred with that assessment.
But he’s learned to adapt to slower players. He’s a much faster player than Kuchar, which was evident on many occasions. Kuchar once raced across the fairway to get out of Johnson’s sight line after Kuchar hit his shot, then realized Johnson was already poised to strike as he began walking across a narrow fairway.
“I've adapted to it,” Johnson said. “I still play fast, but as far as if other guys take a long time or whatever, I won't like have my club out and ready while I'm waiting on them. I'll wait until it's my turn to pull my club and go through my routine so that I don't feel like I'm waiting. Me and my caddie [Bobby Brown] will talk. He'll ask about whatever, until it's my turn to go.”
Why does Johnson think he became a fast player? “I was always a fast player,” he said. “I mean, there's only two things that can happen, you hit a good shot or a bad shot, so why waste time doing it?”
Johnson tees off at 12:20 in Friday’s second round with Bo Van Pelt. Television coverage is from 1-6 p.m. on Golf Channel.
