Why did Dustin Johnson not carry his driver?
We all know that one of Dustin Johnson’s strengths is his ability to hit it very long and very straight with his longest club so why did he start the Northern Trust without his trusted driver?
Well the winner of the 2020 FedEx Cup noticed a small crack in his TaylorMade SIM2 driver before his tee time at Liberty National and, while he was free to replace it as his round hadn’t started, his replacement wasn’t being kept on the property.
The TaylorMade tour truck might also have been the answer but that had left town on Wednesday afternoon on its way to next week’s event at Cave’s Valley in Maryland.
Johnson finished his opening round with a 70 after getting a strong 3-wood delivered from his car while on the 2nd hole.
His big worry was making the carry at the 7th, something that wouldn't normally be associated with someone of Johnson's length.
“It wasn’t too bad,” he said. “I figured out a way to shoot a decent score. It threw me for a loop there because it was literally 10 minutes before I was teeing off when it happened. I managed to get a decent round in there.”
A TaylorMade spokesman explained the crack as just one of those things.
“Driver fatigue will occur over time, of course, for these guys that are hitting so many shots. We do regularly test all of our athletes’ product prior to most tournaments unless a player requests us to provide a new gamer for him."
On Friday he borrowed a driver from Lucas Glover which didn't really pay dividends as he struggled to a 72.