Dustin Johnson's PGA Tale of Woe: Stupid Is as Stupid Does

SHEBOYGAN, Wisc. – Golf's big fat rule book flattened Dustin Johnson on Sunday. What happened on the final regulation hole will probably make Johnson the most sympathetic figure this side of oil-drenched pelicans.

Hold the tears, please.

Johnson's a bonehead, not a victim.

"Maybe I should have looked to the rule sheet a little harder," he said.

Ya think?

In case you missed the fun at the PGA Championship, Johnson had just backed into a playoff by bogeying the final hole. Then a strange thing happened as he walked off the green.

A rules official told Johnson he grounded his club as he prepared to hit his second shot on the 18th hole. That meant a two-shot penalty would be assessed.

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So long playoff. So long dream of winning a major championship.

All over the fact his club touched a little dirt before he swung?

The natural reaction is to turn Johnson into Steven Slater, the Jet Blue flight attendant who pulled the emergency chute. But like last week's working-class victim, there are two sides to the story.

The problem is one side belongs to golf, that stuffy sport with its anal-retentive rule book. One rule is that a golfer can't touch the sand in a bunker with his club.

Whatever the reason, you'd think somewhere in Johnson's brain a little red light might have gone off. Given all the warnings, shouldn't he at least have wondered whether his golf ball was sitting in a questionable zone?
Complicating matters was the fact Whistling Straits has about 1,200 bunkers. Some are so off the beaten path that fans walk through them and service vehicles drive through them.

That kind of real estate is where Johnson's final tee shot ended up. He'd arrived at the last hole needing only a par to win. It not only would have been his first major, it would have erased the Nightmare at Pebble Beach.

Johnson led by three shots going into the final round of the U.S. Open. He proceeded to shoot an 82, the worst round by a 54-hole leader since 1911.

On Sunday, he turned the 18th hole into a miniature Pebble Beach. Johnson's tee shot flew into deep into the gallery. When the throng was cleared away, the golf ball was sitting in patch of trampled dirt.

"It never once crossed my mind it was a sand trap," Johnson said.

It should have. He's a professional golfer, not a weekend hack. He knows how overbearing the Rules Police can be.

And because Whistling Straits is so confusing, the PGA went out of its way to admonish players about what patches of earth qualify as bunkers – they all did.

"We made it the No. 1 item on our local rules sheets," official Mark Wilson said. "Simply to explain that all of the bunkers that were designed and built as sand bunkers on this golf course would be played that way."

Just to make sure, the PGA posted the notice on the mirrors in locker room. Maybe Johnson didn't look in the mirror while washing his hands all week.

Whatever the reason, you'd think somewhere in Johnson's brain a little red light might have gone off. Given all the warnings, shouldn't he at least have wondered whether his golf ball was sitting in a questionable zone?

Sunday's winner would get $1,350,000. Wouldn't it have been worth Johnson's time to ask if he was in a bunker? The PGA had an official assigned to every group, just for circumstances like that.

"He didn't speak to any of the marshals out there," Wilson said.

He just flailed away as usual. The ball ended up in a mess of rough to the left of the green. Johnson almost made a great up-and-down, but his eight-foot putt to win slid right.

Johnson left to sign his scorecard and prepared to battle Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson in the playoff. Then a Big Bad PGA Ogre stopped him and broke the news.

"What bunker?" Johnson exclaimed.

He went to the scorer's office and watched the TV replays. The evidence was incontrovertible.

"I definitely grounded my club," Johnson said. "I never denied."

The nation watched all this through the window. There was poor Dustin, sipping a Gatorade and watching his dream erased over and over in slow-motion. CBS's Jim Nantz called it "De Vicenzo-esque," after Roberto De Vicenzo.

He gained mythic victim status at the 1968 Masters when he signed an incorrect scorecard. The gaffe bounced him out of a playoff and led to the legendary bit of self-analysis:

"What a stupid I am."

I don't blame people for thinking Johnson got a De Vicenzo deal. But ticky-tack rules are there for a reason. In this case, when good players touch the sand with their club they can get a feel for its consistency and adjust their swing accordingly.

Yes, all those rules can be suffocating and overly harsh and downright silly. But everybody knew the PGA rules sheet going in. Or they should have.

"You know, I only look at it if I have a reason to," Johnson said. "And I didn't see I had a reason to."

There were 1,200 reasons at Whistling Straits. All he had to do was look in the mirror to be reminded of that.

Now he'll look in the mirror and be reminded of something else.

What a stupid I am.