First-time Masters champion Dustin Johnson was so metronomic all his shots were great, and forgettable

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One of the weird effects of watching a concentrated amount of golf is that the sport begins to look simple.

You know, all it is is a few 330-yard drives, a few smart-bomb approaches and the occasional rescue shot you thread through a dozen tree trunks and bounce to the pin. No problem-o.

Few golfers have ever deepened this false impression quite like Dustin Johnson just did at this year’s Masters. The first-time champion was so metronomic it is hard to recall any particular shot that stuck out from the bunch. They were all great, as well as being totally forgettable.

En route to putting up the best score in the tournament’s history (a 20-under-par 268), Johnson also made fewer mistakes than anyone had in Augusta (only four bogeys).

Most remarkably, Johnson seemingly did it all while sleepwalking the course. If they still made the things, his main sponsor would be Quaaludes. This guy doesn’t have nerves of steel or ice in his veins or whatever the geezers who commentate over golf are still saying. On the field of play at least, this guy appears to have undergone an emotional lobotomy.

Take for instance the manner in which he won. Unless the score is tight, the done thing is to let the champion take the final putt, freeing the crowd to salute him at length. Instead, Johnson threw a hip in front of second-place finisher Sungjae Im and potted his six-incher before the South Korean could finish out.

For a moment, Johnson seemed about to fist pump, but didn’t manage the follow-through. It was left to his caddie (and brother), Austin, to do the crying. Johnson stood there looking vaguely chuffed with himself, like a man who’d just figured out how to do his own oil changes at home.

In order to remind you how hard golf actually is, they had last year’s champ, Tiger Woods, on hand to give Johnson his green jacket.

Woods is only intermittently what he once was, but he’s still the greatest golfer who ever lived. On Sunday, at the 12th hole, he instead looked like the greatest one-armed golfer who ever lived.

The 12th is a tricky par-three with a tiny green overlooking Rae’s Creek. Woods put his first shot into the water. Then he put his second shot into the water. Then he put his fifth shot (try to keep up) into a bunker. He put his sixth back into the water, got his eighth on the green, missed a putt with his ninth and finally finished up on his 10th.

Woods has been golfing professionally for 24 years. He’s played in nearly 400 pro tournaments. And he had never before scored a 10 on any hole.

Asked afterward what happened, a blasé Woods said, “I committed to the wrong wind.”

Thank god for Woods and his hole of shame. Without it, what was already the most downbeat Masters in memory would have been even more tedious to watch.

This year’s tournament was disadvantaged in several ways. First off, the Masters is synonymous with spring. It also intimately connected to its crowd. Take those two things out of it, and it’s a PGA Championship (the major no one cares about) on an especially nice lawn.

Weeks before it arrived, everyone had settled on one of two narratives: Can Woods repeat? Is Bryson DeChambeau a cyborg sent from the future to destroy golf? Neither panned out.

Woods started well enough but never looked quite right. He wasn’t out of it until Sunday, but he was never quite in it either.

DeChambeau came off much worse. He had his head turned by all the sudden attention and started talking as though he had this thing in the bag. Then he hit the course and began spraying shots like an enormous, malfunctioning sprinkler head.

In the end, he was another one spouting gibberish. What’s DeChambeau’s plan now? “Keep getting stronger and try to focus on what I can control. That’s all that matters.”

The unasked follow-up: “Who’s been controlling your golf shots up until this point?”

Robbed of their two stars, without the rites of spring to fall back on, unable to put together the usual schmaltzy touches (magnolia closeup, anyone?) that make the Masters such enjoyable treacle, all the broadcasters had to fall back on was the golf.

That left them leaning hard on Johnson, who actively refuses to be telegenic. His supporting cast – Im and Australia’s Cameron Smith – were just as bad.

When did golfers lose their joie de vivre? Woods created the ideal of the golfing robot, but even he knew you had to give the people something every once in a while. A war whoop, punch the air, fling a club. Something to keep things interesting.

Had it been close, some tension would have occurred organically. But this was a blowout. All blowouts are terrible, but there is none so miserable as a golf blowout. You are wasting your Sunday watching a few guys take practice shots.

When it ended, you couldn’t turn away. You’d already given so much. So although you knew it would be awkward and terrible, you forced yourself to watch the jacket ceremony. I can’t quote Johnson here because once he started talking all I could hear was a low tone, sort of like overhead lighting.

Woods put the coat on him. Augusta chairman Fred Ridley said, “Congratulations, Dustin. Very happy for you.”

“Absolutely,” Johnson said.

At which point, I began to believe that Johnson has so mastered the art of Zen that he was not in Georgia playing golf. In his mind, he’s at home, on his couch, dreaming about playing faultless golf.

Another explanation is that he doesn’t hear so well.

In the end, playing the Masters out of order in the midst of COVID-19 was smart business. It landed in a dead zone in the sports schedule, kept the sponsors happy and gave a deserving pro his biggest win. Smiles all around.

But if they’re going to change something for next time, change everything back to the way it was and never, ever get creative again.

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