A lot has changed for Dustin Johnson since the last time he was at Oakmont Country Club nine years ago.
He captured his second major title, winning the November Masters in 2020. He was one of the first players to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf in 2022, where he remains with one win in each of his first three seasons, though he hasn’t collected a worldwide win since February 2024.
This week, the 40-year-old is back in Western Pennsylvania looking to rekindle the DJ of old’s flame at the 2025 U.S. Open. He has missed the cut in five of his past seven majors and sits 27th in the LIV Golf season standings after eight events with three top-10 finishes on the year, including last week at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. But he remains far from his form in 2016, when he entered the final round at Oakmont trailing by four but won by three, claiming his first major championship title a year removed from a disappointing finish at Chambers Bay, when he had an eagle putt from 12 feet to win on the 72nd hole and walked off the green with a par to miss a playoff by one shot.
“The course is just as hard as I remember, if not harder. Yeah, I like coming back here. I love the golf course,” Johnson said Monday at his pre-tournament news conference.
“First time I played it, probably two weeks prior to the 2016 Open, so obviously a lot of good memories from that year. Coming back, I was back here one other time when I got my honorary membership here, for that ceremony, which was really nice. Proud member of Oakmont. I’m probably their favorite member because I never come.”
Johnson calls Oakmont the toughest course he has ever played, and he couldn’t name a second off the top of his head.
Even with softer conditions expected this week thanks to upwards of 13 inches of rain in the past 10 weeks, and more expected early on and possibly on the weekend, it could make the golf course a bit easier to hold the fairways and greens, but it could lead to it playing longer, too.
That’s how conditions were when Johnson won in 2016.
“The conditions right now are similar,” he said. “Hopefully it will be dry, we won’t get any more rain, and it will dry out a little bit by Thursday.”
Johnson said his game has been trending in the right direction, even if the results don’t show it. He’s currently in the midst of one of his longest winless streaks (16 months) of his lengthy pro career.
“Golf is a strange sport. I don’t feel like I’ve slipped any. My scores haven’t reflected, but it is a really fine line,” Johnson said. “I remember a few years ago, I missed two cuts in a row. I think I shot 80-80, and then I won the next week.
“For me it’s always really close to being good, but just getting back there and keeping it consistent which over the last couple months I’m starting to see a lot of patterns and the game feels like it’s coming back into good form.”
Before he won at Oakmont in 2016, Johnson went 15 months between victories.
A lot has changed in nine years, but the competitive fire remains inside DJ, and he’s hoping some good vibes at Oakmont can be the spark to another special week.
“I have confidence in this golf course because I know I played well, but obviously this week puts a lot of pressure on the driver. I feel like I’m driving the ball really good right now,” he said. “Even from there, though, it doesn’t get much easier. You definitely have to hit it in the fairway if you want a chance to win around here.
“I’m looking forward to playing in it this week and hopefully can contend.”
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