Michaux: Dustin Johnson has the talent to win many more major championships

Only Dustin Johnson could finally end his long-suffering major championship history on America’s meanest golf course in the middle of a Twitter riot with the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

Despite the United States Golf Association’s best efforts to clutter up the game’s most uncluttered mind with the unnecessary threat of a retroactive penalty, Johnson buried any uncertainty and his tortured past with a decisive three-shot* victory in the 116th U.S. Open at Oakmont.

(* – The USGA isn’t fooling anybody; we all know it was really four shots.)

On the toughest hole on the golf course, Johnson dismissed his demons and any doubts with a dart of a 6-iron from 190 yards to 5 feet for an exclamation-point birdie. For old times’ sake he could have three-putted from there like he did last year at Chambers Bay and accepted a penalty like he did from the PGA of America at Whistling Straits and still had his name engraved on the trophy.

The only thing that could have stopped DJ was pulling a Roberto de Vicenzo with his scorecard. It would have fit the Dustin Johnson brand that he carried with him at all previous major championships, but that story doesn’t suit him any more. Golf’s most athletically gifted player finally fulfilled what has always been meant to be his destiny provided he could get out of his own way.

“After last year, to come back this year and perform like this, you know, I think it shows what kind of golfer I am,” he said.

Sunday’s triumph doesn’t erase Johnson’s past major transgressions, but it ends the misery generated by the annual rehashing of them. The meltdown at Pebble Beach, bunker-gate at Whistling Straits, the OB stumble at Royal St. George’s and the three-putt on the cauliflower greens at Chambers Bay are all just footnotes now that he’s broken through the glass ceiling. With talent like his, there are few limits to his potential to collect many more.

“It couldn’t be any better,” he said. “I think it’s well deserved. After everything that I’ve been through in the majors – I’ve knocked on the door a bunch of times – to finally get that major win, it’s huge. It gives me a lot more confidence going into every major to know that I can win. It’s a big monkey off my back for sure. I feel a lot lighter.”

En route to his rally from four shots behind Shane Lowry at the start of the round, Johnson had to endure the latest case in a long list of buffoonery from the USGA. Cleared by the on-site rules official when his ball moved slightly toward his putter as he was getting ready to address it on the fifth green, Johnson was informed by another official on the 12th tee that he might face a one-stroke penalty after a post-round review.

The impending threat basically hijacked the final hours of the U.S. Open. The game’s top players staged a social media rebellion against the “amateurs” running the national championship. There was no mincing of words on Twitter or confusion as to who was the villain and who was the sympathetic figure.

“This is ridiculous... No penalty whatsoever for DJ,” said Rory McIlroy. “Let the guy play without this crap in his head. Amateur hour from @USGA.”

“Lemme get this straight,” said Jordan Spieth. “DJ doesn’t address it. It’s ruled that he didn’t cause it to move. Now you tell him he may have? Now? This a joke?”

“Laughable!” said Rickie Fowler.

“@USGA treatment of @DJohnsonPGA absolutely shocking,” chimed in Ernie Els.

After Johnson was indeed assessed what the masses agree was a bogus penalty stroke after his round, the crowd around the 18th green erupted in boos when it was brought up during the trophy presentation. Johnson didn’t seem to care that the governing body that failed to restrain him from hitting drivers that carry 329 yards in the air would look like fools over a ball that wobbled a millimeter on absurdly fast greens despite him never touching or soling his putter behind the ball.

Johnson didn’t need to put up much of a fight in the clubhouse. He rendered it all moot by his impervious performance and handled it better than most golfers probably would have, shrugging it off in his usual manner then taking care of what he could control while everyone with a chance to benefit from his misfortune faltered all around him.

“I felt like I wasn’t going to be penalized,” he said. “So I just went about my business – just focused on the drive on 12 and from there on out, that we’d deal with when we got done. It doesn’t matter now. I’m glad it didn’t matter because that would have been bad. But, you know, it worked out.”

Amidst his own dejection for letting his four-shot lead slip, Lowry tipped his hat to Johnson for not letting the situation get to him.

“It didn’t affect the way I played,” Lowry said. “If anything, I credit Dustin for playing the way he played on the way in, having that hanging over him, because I probably would have wanted to know straightaway if it was me.”

When history reflects on the 116th U.S. Open, the egg all over the USGA’s face won’t matter as much as the name etched permanently onto its trophy and the scene of him celebrating Father’s Day with his 18-month-old son, Tatum, in his arms a year after hugging the infant as consolation.

For all his faults, Dustin Johnson deserves to be counted among the major winners. Of course there had to be more adversity along the way. It only makes the outcome that much sweeter.

“Just one more thing to add to the list, right?” he said of the weirdness he’s endured. “It definitely makes it sweet. It’s nothing new at this point. It’s happened so many times you kind of expect it now. To not have it effect the outcome is fantastic. It shows how well I played.”