AUGUSTA, GA. – Dustin Johnson will be in Butler Cabin on Sunday night, draping the green coat over the shoulders of the Masters champion.
That will be his only official performance at Augusta National this weekend.
Johnson – the world’s No. 1 player and reigning Masters champion – made three of his last four holes on Friday, missing the cut by two shots. He is the 11th defending champion to miss the 36-hole cut.
“It was clear I wanted to be in the area for the weekend,” Johnson said. “I love this course. I feel like I play really well on it. I just didn’t put all that well. It’s pretty simple.
Johnson was the biggest – but by no means the only big name – to drop out.
Lee Westwood’s streak of 12 consecutive cuts to Masters appearances is over; he was 5 left. So does Rory McIlroy’s run of 10 consecutive times he played the weekend at Augusta National; he was 6 over and his quest to complete the Grand Slam career will have to wait until 2022. Brooks Koepka will go home early for the first time in six Masters appearances.
The top 50 players and tie make the cut at the Masters; this year, that was 3 or 10 shots back from leader Justin Rose.
Koepka came to Augusta National less than a month from surgery on his right knee to repair a dislocated kneecap and some ligament problems. If it wasn’t for the Masters, he wouldn’t have played this week – or several more weeks.
Since this was Augusta, he took a chance. He shot 75 on Friday and missed the cut with two strokes on 5 over.
“How disappointed do you think I am?” Koepka said. “I worked hard to get here, and it’s pretty disappointing to play like that.”
Now he is going to take a long break. He said he might not try to compete again until the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island, which starts May 20.
“I won’t miss it, I know,” said Koepka. “But it is difficult to say whether I will play anything earlier, just for how it feels, how rehabilitation is going and all that.”
Johnson’s absence is clearly the biggest surprise on the way to the weekend.
He shot a 74 on Thursday and left no margin for error on Friday – then he needed a miracle that never came. Johnson’s tee shot on the par-4 18th landed in a fairway bunker, his approach didn’t even make it to the green, and his chip he needed to draw out to play the weekend didn’t come close.
That was the end, but not the totality of the undoing.
Johnson reached the green on the par-5 15th in half – albeit temporarily, with the ball spinning back down the slope, into the water and leading to a bogey that put him right on the 3-cross intersection.
A tee shot into the pine straw on the 17th led to another bogey. It didn’t take long to be official. After setting the Masters scoring record last November and finishing 20 under, his title defense came to an abrupt end.
“I just didn’t put all that well,” said Johnson.
Sergio Garcia, in 2018, was the most recent Masters champion to return the following year, missing the cut. Garcia missed it again this year, with just one shot, after bogey on two of his last four holes.
“It’s clearly disappointing because I love the Masters,” said Garcia. ‘If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t care. You know, it’s just … it would be nice to get a little more love from the course sometimes, you know? ‘
Four of the top 12 players in the world – Johnson, No. 10 Patrick Cantlay, No. 11 Koepka and No. 12 McIlroy – all missed the cut. So did top 20 player Sungjae Im, who finished second last year, and Dylan Frittelli, who finished fifth at Augusta National last November. I wasn’t even close, shot 77-80 to miss 10 shots, and Cantlay was 8 left to miss the cut with five.
Some made it for the first time, including Matt Jones, who shot a 3-under 69 on Friday and hit 1 under for a week.
“Making the cut was always the first goal,” said Jones.
That was the case for everyone. And for 34 of the 88 starters it worked out like this.
“That’s right,” said Garcia. “Sometimes things don’t want to happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.