Myrtle Beach resident Dustin Johnson seems to become a story at every turn these days. In many of the instances, he'd just as soon fly under the radar.
Johnson gained fame and a following last year when he struggled mightily with a final-round lead at the U.S. Open, was assessed a two-stroke penalty for unknowingly grounding his club in a bunker at the PGA Championship that kept him out of a playoff, then rebounded with a win at the BMW Championship that gave him a legitimate shot at the $10 million FedExCup playoff bonus.
That brought added attention to Johnson, and he's been a story every where he has gone thus far in 2011.
LPGA star and model Natalile Gulbis said while following Johnson around the Kapalua course at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions that she was dating him, and that story reached even the tabloid level of exposure. Then Johnson said he wasn't dating Gulbis, which warranted another headline.
Johnson also withdrew from the second event of the season, the Sony Open, even though he was already in Hawaii that week for the season-opening event. He cited personal reasons to tour officials. The withdrawal, coming on the heels of Gulbis' revelation, created news as the media speculated on the reasons for his withdrawal, with his situation with Gulbis factored into many of the theories.
Johnson managed to plead guilty to a lesser charge last week than the driving under the influence charge he faced from a traffic stop in Murrells Inlet in March 2009, bringing his name up again for an off-the-course issue.
On Thursday, he was nearly disqualified from the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club when he was nearly five full minutes late for his tee time. He made it to the tee within six seconds of a DQ, instead suffering a two-stroke penalty that contributed to a rare missed cut.
The Associated Press wrote a 17-inch story on the late tee time. It would warrant a couple paragraphs for most players, but not Johnson these days. His caddie, Bobby Brown, accepted blame for thinking the tee time was about 30 minutes later.
You'd think the story of a simple missed tee time would end there. But it didn't. Golf Channel reporter Jim Gray apparently waited for Johnson on the 14th tee to ask about the mistake, leading to a verbal exchange with Brown, who was peeved the Gray would interrupt the round to bring up the error. Golfers are seldom asked questions from reporters until their rounds are complete.
Though Gray reportedly remained calm while receiving Brown's ire, Golf Channel executives opted to remove Gray from Riviera for the remainder of the week, eliciting another fairly lengthy story.
Johnson's missed cut is perhaps a sign he was looking for some peace this weekend.
I can't wait to see what happens at next week's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
Johnson is not a hard person to keep track of these days. Just keep reading the headlines.
