Speechless in Seattle - Dustin Johnson's Inexplicable 3-putt Hands Chambers Bay U.S. Open to Jordan Spieth

By: Jay Flemma


[Editor's Note: Bringing back an old favorite column, Jay writes this U.S. Open wrap-up in the form of a Father's day letter to his 91-year old Dad.]

Dear Dad:

For the 11th year in a row, because of the U.S. Open I'll miss seeing you for Father's Day. I'm really sorry for that, and I wish it were different. The tradition of the tournament ending on Father's Day makes for some great made-for-TV schmaltz for the broadcast, but leaves us journalists out in the cold.

Still, you know that, metaphorically speaking, you never leave me. Besides, it's fun sharing the tournament with you like this, in an article. You get something to read and keep in the scrapbook, I get to unwind on paper - stretch my legs as a writer - and have a chat with my favorite person in the world about the tournament. It's a win-win for both of us. Good Lord willing, I'll see you for breakfast soon enough anyway, and you can give me your unfiltered opinion of my writing this week.

We can have our own "Shit my Dad Says" moment.

It was another historic week at a major; between a wildly popular winner, a gorgeous and brilliantly designed golf course entering the informal U.S. Open rotation, and a dramatic finish, golf fans should be dancing on clouds right now. Talk about a cold rock thriller, as the kids say! Jordan Spieth won the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay by one shot over Dustin Johnson and a hard-charging 2010 Open Championship winner Louis Oosthuizen, (pronounced "LOO-ee WEST-hay-zehn"). Spieth's final round 69 gave him a 5-under total of 275 for the week, but more importantly propels him into the Open at St. Andrews as only the sixth golfer in history to win the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year. The list of the other guys is a Who's Who of world golf, all immortals: Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, your boy Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, (twice), and Craig Wood, the great pro of the '40s who hailed from up in our neck of the way, Lake Placid.

If he keeps this up, maybe they'll name a soft drink after Spieth too.

He hardly won in immortal fashion, however. In fact, you could almost say he backed into it at the end, when Dustin Johnson three-putted the last hole. We haven't seen a hockey game like that break out on a 72nd green since Stew Cink, Retief Goosen, and Mark Brooks all three-putted the last at Southern Hills in 2001.

Like Cink in 2001, Johnson went from winning outright, to missing out on a playoff and becoming a goat for the ages (again) in the span of a minute and a half.

It was a minute and a half of real time, but a lifetime of hard work dashed. It should have been Johnson's redemptive triumph, his apotheosis. Instead it's yet another ignominious defeat in a major. Dustin was playing lights-out golf from tee to green all week. For goodness sake, he not only hit all 14 fairways on Saturday when he surged into a four-way tie for the lead, he drove two par-4 greens! He was clearly the best and most consistent ball striker all week.

"From tee to green, I'm playing the best golf of my life," he lamented.

But Johnson ranks 159th on the PGA Tour in putting inside 10 feet - 159th! - and you can't win majors if you miss short putts.

Just ask Phil Mickelson. It was only when Phil started the "Circle of Death" drill - make 100 consecutive five-footers on the practice green - that he finally broke through.

Sure enough, although Johnson entered the back nine on Sunday with a two-shot lead, he frittered it away in two shakes of a lamb's tail. He missed short putts on 10, 11, 12, 13, and 16, making three bogeys in the process and dropping to 3-under.

And when Spieth made a magical up-and-down from the edge of a bunker for birdie on 16 to climb to 6-under for the tournament, Jordan's three-shot lead looked insurmountable. Every journalist in the house filed out of the lunch room to write their leads - Game, set, match: Jordan. Right?

But then, out of nowhere, the reigning Masters champ turned into one of your 18-handicap golf buddies. He cold-block pushed his tee ball into the spinach patch right of the par-3 17th green. A hack out onto the green, an indifferent lag, and a cruel lip out later and - hold the phone! - the lead was down to one.

And things looked bleak, because as you know, guys that double bogey the 71st hole aren't supposed to win majors either…Ask Phil Mickelson about that too.

Cue Louis Oosthuizen. The man who vaporized St. Andrews in the 2010 Open Championship and had the 2011 Masters cruelly snatched from him by Angel Cabrera saw an opening and seized his opportunity.

Louis, who started the day three off the pace, thought he had shot himself out of contention with three bogeys in the first four holes. He sank from 1-under to start the day to 2-over. He was done, it seemed.

"Started awfully, really. The first fairways , the first few holes, couldn't get to greens, had to struggle. 3-over through 4 is not the start you want," he recalled

But Chambers Bay if full of swing holes - both birdies and bogeys by the fistful, and Louis caught fire late. We're talking like "Towering Inferno" fire. He birdied five holes in a row - 12-16, including a miraculous hole-out of a wedge on 14 - and parred the 17. He closed with one final birdie at the 601-yard par-5 (on this day) 18th hole for a U.S. Open record back nine of 29. Only Ian Baker-Finch has equaled that feat, firing a 29 on the front nine of Royal Birkdale in the 1991 Open Championship. Louis posted 4-under 276 for the tournament: the leader in the clubhouse, and tied with Spieth.

But this would be the second time Louis would hole out a shot from the fairway in the final round and still finish second.

And if Oosthuizen's surge wasn't enough motivation, after Spieth split the fairway on 18 with a long tee shot deep into Position A, he heard a roar from back on 17 that could only mean one thing: Johnson finally made a putt and surged into a tie for the lead. Suddenly three players were 4-under.

All to play for: one hole to go and three superstars in the mix. How could you not love this tournament?

Jordan had complained about the 18th hole Saturday night, claiming the green wasn't set up to receive long shots, and shouldn't be a par-4, (it rotated during the course of the week, another of Mike Davis's "flexible set up" ideas). The USGA relented from their previous position and let it stay as a par-5 instead of switching it for Sunday as they originally planned.

Jordan hit the green in two anyway - doing what the true greats do in the clutch: Respond! With a two-putt birdie he took a one shot lead, whereupon he retreated into the scorer's tent to watch Johnson.

Johnson couldn't have asked himself to hit a better approach to a 72nd hole. His laser-beam 5-wood approach finished just 12 feet above the hole. The adoring crowd was now agog with the thought of what could transpire…and Spieth was horrified by it.

"Eagle," thought Spieth. "I lose."

But then the unthinkable happened, and Dustin not only missed the eagle putt, but pulled the shorty coming back.

"I'm still in shock," Spieth explained. "I've never experienced a feeling like this, just kind of total shock. I thought that I had won it on 16…I didn't think I had lost it after 17 but I thought I needed to play 18 well just to play tomorrow. And then after DJ hit his second shot in, I thought, Shoot, I may have lost this tournament. And just utter shock at the finish."

Johnson, on the other hand, was less than gracious. He refused to come to the media center for an interview: Bad form. My friend and colleague Hank Gola of the New York Daily News cornered Johnson in the locker room after the round and got a few comments, though none made Johnson look any more gracious:

"Disappointed," he said sullenly. "I played really well. I didn't make any putts today, I really didn't. I had all the chances in the world. I'm really proud of the way I hit the ball. Proud of the way I handled myself all day….."If I rolled the putter halfway decent today . . . which I did roll it well . . . just any putts go in the hole, I win this thing by a few shots, it's not even close."

Dad, it makes me think Dustin didn't learn anything during his six months off. He had all those drug and legal problems when he was in college, but we forgave him. He goes and chokes away the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach after having a three shot lead leading into the final round, and we all felt badly for him. But then he goes and has that suspicious rules flap at the 72nd hole of the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and blows his chance to be in a playoff. Let's review: notice is posted all over creation that all bunkers are hazards - you couldn't take a whiz in the locker room without seeing it because it was actually posted above all the urinals, next to all the mirrors, and on everyone's locker.

But Dustin was too important and too busy to bother reading the rules. I wrote an article about it, comparing him to Roberto DiVicenzo, who blew the Masters by signing an incorrect scorecard: to paraphrase Roberto, "What a stupid he was…"

…and then the…alleged…"suspension" for "personal issues," personal issues rumored to be hard drugs.

If he had come back and been transparent about what happened - or even just politely declined to talk about saying something like, "Can't we just let it be in the past and let me make my future?" - I could live with that. But instead he feeds us some BS line about booze and taking care of it by making a bet with his famous father-in-law. That story was as flimsy as Robert Allenby's, yet Johnson got a free pass from the media because everyone likes him. Some in the media are getting star-struck, and repeating the same mistakes we made with Woods by pandering and enabling him.

Johnson skipped the award ceremony as some kind of silent protest against the USGA set up and the greens, but since he's 159th in putting on the tour, if he has any bad looks to throw away, he can throw them at a mirror. Johnson's getting harder and harder to like, because he doesn't make himself a sympathetic figure. You can tell what a man is truly like by how he acts in his worse moments. Phil Mickelson blew a U.S. Open even though he had a three shot lead with three to play, and he came out and answered every last question asked of him. With a chance to show us how gracious and grateful he's become after all his…troubles…Dustin again failed to impress.

Rightfully so, the USGA left his chair empty, Johnson's silent protest instead backfiring on him, and making him look petulant. What a stupid he was…again.

Dad, it's as though the Golf Gods really did nod this time, they smiled upon the more graceful, classy, hard-working, grateful kid. You'd love Spieth because we journalists don't have to invent a hero where one doesn't exist. Dan Jenkins likes to say that we can impugn a lot of grace and class on a guy who wins golf tournaments, but don't have to invent or impugn anything about Jordan. Instead, we have a role model to watch and be inspired by. Spieth is the son you brought me up to be: he says "please" and "thank you," he calls everyone "Sir" or "ma'am," and he's polite, gracious, and thankful. "Golf, God, and country" instead of hookers, pancake waitresses and entourages, instead of celeb-utard WAGS and wild parties, instead of entitlement and attitude.

We also can hope for a triple crown at St. Andrews and maybe even a shot at a Grand Slam at Whistling Straits. I know, I know, let's cool off on all the Grand Slam talk until after the Open. We're not frogs and Spieth's not a bunny so let's not jump ahead. St. Andrews is first, a chance for the next step in history. Only Hogan held all three titles - US, British, and Masters - in the same year. St. Andrews is the perfect place for history to be re-made.

Happily, Spieth is plucky about it.

"Right now, I'm just focused on the Claret Jug," he stated. "I plan to go there on a charter, the way I've done the last two years, after the John Deere, that's the plan. So I won't be there as early as I was for this major, but that's the same time I got in for the Masters, so I don't think I have to be in early this year. I got in late Sunday night to Augusta."

Talk about win-win situations, heading into the Open Championship at the Home of Golf, St. Andrews it's Jordan Spieth, who won the last two majors, against Rory McIlroy, who won the two majors before that and who is the reigning Open Champion. Not only is it the Now Generation's greatest names locking horns - with all the rest of the rising young stars nipping at their heels - it's America's great champion vs. Europe's.

That's one of the great successes of this year's U.S. Open: the leaderboard featured all the young mega-watt star power. It wasn't the Next Generation making their mark, it was the Now Generation commanding respect. Guys like Spieth and Johnson, Reed and Day, McIlroy and Fowler, they are no longer up-and-comers, they are the face of the PGA Tour…

…when you can find them in between Tiger Woods highlight packages.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Dad, I'm happy to say it finally may be sinking in. When even broadcasters are starting to agree with writers that Woods has lost a step - permanently - and that the days of him dominating golf are over, you know we have finally turned the corner. People are statin to write Woods off. They realize he will never dominate again, and that golf needs to turn the page to survive.

I wish we had turned a corner or a page regarding the appearance and set-up of golf courses. Don't believe the hullabaloo about the condition of the greens.

Since launching his first golf writing website in 2004, http://jayflemma.thegolfspace.com, Jay Flemma 's comparative analysis of golf designs and knowledge of golf course architecture and golf travel have garnered wide industry respect. In researching his book on America's great public golf courses (and whether they're worth the money), Jay has played over 420 nationally ranked public golf courses in 40 different states, and covered seven U.S. Opens and six PGA Championships, along with one trip to the Masters. A four-time award-winning sportswriter, Jay was called the best sports poet alive by both Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports writers and broadcasters. Jay has played about 3 million yards of golf - or close to 2,000 miles. In addition to Cybergolf, his pieces on travel and architecture appear in Golf Observer (www.golfobserver.com), PGA.com, Golf Magazine and other print magazines. When not researching golf courses for design, value and excitement, Jay is an entertainment, copyright, Internet and trademark lawyer and an Entertainment and Internet Law professor in Manhattan. His clients have been nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards, won a Sundance Film Festival Best Director award, performed on stage and screen, and designed pop art for museums and collectors. Jay lives in Forest Hills, N.Y., and is fiercely loyal to his alma maters, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Trinity College in Connecticut.