CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Tom Johnson met Rory McIlroy on the putting green and Scottie Scheffler on the range on Wednesday. He had lunch with Justin Rose and then his old college teammate, Luke Donald, joined them. Johnson smiled the smile of a man who is living his best life this week at the 107th PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
Johnson, 43, is competing in his first PGA Championship, one of the 20 club pros to qualify after finishing T-9 in the 2025 PGA Professional Championship last month.
“This is the ultimate, this was the goal and it’s a dream come true,” he said on Wednesday at the practice putting green at Quail Hollow Club. “I’ve had so many unbelievable experiences this week that it could end now and it would be awesome and I haven’t even hit a shot yet. It’s only going to get better.”
Johnson has been teaching the game since 2016, currently as the director of instruction at Meadow Club in Fairfax, California, but lived the life of a Tour pro for several years, including in 2007 when he had full status.
“It was what I dreamt of doing but when I got out here I didn’t feel like it was a dream.”
Johnson suffered from performance anxiety, recording just one top-25 finish ($56,667 represents his largest check for finishing 18th in the 2007 Bob Hope Desert Classic) and finishing 196th on the money list.
“Just imagine the worst kind of butterflies to the point where you think you are going to throw up,” he said. “I know I’m not alone. I’ve read how Bobby Jones lost lots of weight when he played.”
Dealing with performance anxiety using alchohol, drugs
Johnson learned to calm his nerves in unusual fashion. Experiencing yips so severe at the Northeast Amateur when he was 18 that he putted one-handed, he took a shot of whiskey during a rain delay “that made me feel warm and at ease,” he told the Sacramento Bee in 2015. When he qualified for the PGA Tour at the six-round pressure-cooker known as PGA Tour Q-School, he smoked marijuana before every round and finished in eighth place.
He’s not the only golfer to ever smoke pot, but he may be the only pro to use it to enhance his performance.
“I thought that worked, I’ll do it again,” said Johnson, who has admitted to smoking marijuana before all 70+ rounds he played during the 2007 season. “It got to be where I was abusing it ever closer and closer to my tee times and I can think of a time I even did it during play, which I’m not proud of, but at that time I really needed something.”
Tom Johnson has been sober nearly 12 years
Johnson hit rock bottom when he was arrested for driving under the influence in 2013. For her birthday present that year, on July 4th, his mother asked him to get sober. Johnson knew it was time to seek help. He has been drug- and alcohol-free since July 5, 2013.
“That was a major turning point in my life. I went to meetings every day for three years because I knew I couldn’t keep sober on my own. That’s where I learned the 12 steps and the tools to deal with it. I needed a new operating system. With the help of a lot of people on that same path of sobriety, I no longer feel that way. My life is good.”
The other turning point was meeting his now-wife Caitlin in 2016. At the time, he was still competing on the Asian Tour, but he knew he had reached a fork in the road and decided to commit to her and start a family. For a time, he covered sports for the Trinity Journal, the region’s weekly newspaper, and was a substitute teacher. Before long, he began teaching golf at Golden Gate Park Golf Course, a par-3 course with a driving range, consisting of hitting into a net 25 yards away. The Olympic Club hired him and he learned under the director of instruction Richard Sheridan.
“It’s so gratifying to teach, and to give back, and to basically share the gift of golf,” he told NCGA Golf Magazine in 2021.
Johnson played college golf at Northwestern alongside European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald and grew up playing against the likes of James Hahn, Nick Watney and Ricky Barnes, who are still toiling on the pro circuit. When Donald was asked to name his favorite story involving Johnson from his college days, he replied, “I’m not sure they’re appropriate for this audience. We had some fun in college, though, for four years. That’s for sure.”
Since his touring days, Johnson has been named the Northern California PGA Player of the Year for three straight years running and made the cut in back-to-back years at the Tour’s annual stop in Napa. Asked how he deals with his performance anxiety these days, he said, “I use prayer, meditation and have a better perspective. It’s been a spiritual journey.”
“I like the life I’m living right now,” he said. “I like being home and being a presence in my son’s life. I’m grateful that I’m not on Tour, honestly. I’m not trying to rekindle my career out here. I like my life.”
But how Johnson has remained competitive with two children under age 3 and a busy schedule as a teaching professional is a story in its own self.
“For starters, I believe that fitness is as important as swing mechanics. If you feel strong, you’ll play strong. I get up at 4:45 a.m. three times a week and work out with a neighbor, who happens to be a Titleist Performance Institute Level 3 Certified Trainer and sports chiropractor,” he explained. “My practice comes during my lunch break, and it typically involves games. I like my practice to be purposeful, competitive and quantifiable, and it can’t take longer than 30 minutes. I’m competing against myself, and I keep records of each day’s results to quantify my progress.”
During his college days at Northwestern, a trainer told him that athletes are motivated to work out by the desire to improve performance, but that goal is fleeting. It eventually will change to managing pain.
“I couldn’t relate then, but alas, here I am,” he said. These days, some form of daily workout is a necessity, especially if I expect to play decent golf. I cannot overstate how helpful it is to engage with a fitness professional – even if means a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call!”
Another key for Johnson’s game holding up after age 40 is the speed training work he has done ever since seeing Matt Fitzpatrick win the 2022 U.S. Open. In a post-round interview, the 5-foot-10, 155-pound Englishman attributed his newly gained distance to the Stack System.
“I find that swinging a heavy club is great for building speed through strength, whereas the benefit of swinging a light club is giving my body permission to rotate as fast as possible,” he said.
“A realistic expectation from speed training would be a 3-5 mph gain of swing speed, or 10-20 yards of distance.”
All the hard work has paid off for Johnson, who is finally living a dream that had been deferred.
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