Dustin Johnson stumbles on back nine to shoot 71 at Tour Championship

Dustin Johnson began Saturday’s third round of the Tour Championship delivering on his promise to shoot a couple low numbers on the weekend at East Lake Golf Club.

He birdied the first and ninth holes to make the turn at 2 under.

But on a soggy day where the low round was Rickie Fowler’s 3-under 67, Johnson couldn’t sustain his play on the back nine and shot a 1-over 71 to fall into 17th place in the 28-player field at 2-over 212.

“I got off to a good start and played good on the front again,” Johnson said. “I was 2 under on the front and then just couldn’t get anything going on the back nine.”

Jordan Spieth leads the tournament by a shot over Henrik Stenson at 8-under 212 and there are just eight players under par.

“The golf course is playing tough. It’s playing really long. It’s wet,” Johnson said. “I’m pretty happy with the way I played. I hit some really good putts that didn’t go in. I think it’s really close to being really, really good, but the putter’s not going in the hole.”

There’s always a more lucrative payday at stake on Sunday in the Tour Championship because of the pending $35 million FedExCup bonus payment at the end of play – $25.19 million will be paid to the 30 players who qualified for the Tour Championship – so Johnson has plenty to play for Sunday.

The Coastal Carolina alumnus entered the Tour Championship seventh in 2015 FedExCup points and is projected to remain seventh based on his current standing.

A move into sixth in points would increase his bonus from $700,000 to $800,000, and a move into fifth would increase his bonus to $1 million.

A drop to eighth would drop his bonus to $600,000.

The Tour Championship’s $8.25 million purse is also at stake, and Johnson could increase his tournament earnings by nearly $100,000 to $264,000 with a move from 17th to eighth, which is currently at 1-under 209.

“Tomorrow I need to go out and shoot as low as I can and try to climb up that leaderboard,” Johnson said. “Believe me, I’m going to be trying to hole everything I can tomorrow.”

Johnson birdied the first hole Saturday with a 320-yard drive and wedge to 6 feet.

He scrambled for pars on the par-3 second hole with a chip to 2 feet, par-4 third hole with an 8-foot putt and par-4 fifth hole with a chip to a couple feet, then missed 14-foot birdie putts on the seventh and eighth holes.

A 70-yard pitch to 6 feet resulted in a birdie on the par-5 ninth and allowed Johnson to make the turn 1 under for the tournament.

But he bogeyed the par-4 10th hole after a drive to the right that required a punch out, and the par-3 11th after missing the green. He missed par putts of 13 and 15 feet on the holes.

Johnson gave himself birdie putts between 17 and 26 feet on holes 12, 13 and 14, and chipped to 5 feet for a birdie on the 15th to get back to even par for the tournament. But he bogeyed two of the final three holes.

An approach over the green and chunked chip shot to the fringe resulted in a bogey on the par-4 16th. Johnson pitched from 50 yards to 2 feet to save par on the par-4 17th after finding a right fairway bunker, and he bogeyed the par-3 18th hole when his ball was partially plugged in a front bunker. Fifteen-foot par putts on the 16th and 18th holes caught lips.

“On 16 and 18 obviously I didn’t want [15-footers] for par, but still I hit good putts and hit the hole, both of them, but neither one of them went in,” Johnson said.

Intermittent steady and light rain has been a constant for the past two rounds following an opening round that was overcast with rain during only the last 90 minutes of play or so. More than 2.5 inches of rain had fallen on the 7,319-yard par-70 East Lake between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon.

“It is what it is. Everybody is playing in it,” Johnson said. “Yeah, it gets annoying, because this golf course is so good, especially when it’s firm and fast and dry. The way it played the first day was awesome but the last two days obviously it just keeps getting wetter. Still it’s holding up good. The greens are perfect. The golf course is just playing really long.”

Johnson has won in inclement weather in the past, giving him a reputation as one of the PGA Tour’s better mudders.

His first victory at the 2008 Turning Stone Resort Championship included three rounds played through wind, rain and even a hail shower. The PGA Tour employed a lift, clean and place policy there, as it did Saturday at East Lake.

Johnson won the 2009 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after it was shortened to 54 holes because of poor weather, and he won the 2011 Barclays at the onset of Hurricane Irene. Johnson played much of a third-round 6-under 65 in the rain before the final round was canceled.

“I don’t mind playing in it. It doesn’t bother me,” Johnson said. “It just gets frustrating when you’re not making any putts.”

Johnson doesn’t believe he needs to do much different aside from on the greens to deliver one low round this weekend.

“I’ve got to make putts. It’s simple,” Johnson said. “It’s not like I need to go work on the game or anything. I feel like I’m playing really good. I just have to get it in the hole faster.”

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Dustin Johnson stumbles on back nine to shoot 71 at Tour Championship."