Dustin Johnson shoots 70 without a driver in the bag

JERSEY CITY, N.J. – The reigning FedExCup champion started his Playoffs run without a driver or 3-wood in the bag.

Dustin Johnson still shot a 1-under 70 in the first round of THE NORTHERN TRUST at Liberty National.

Johnson noticed a crack in his driver minutes before Thursday’s round. A 5-wood was the next-longest club in his bag. Fortunately, Johnson had a strong 3-wood in his car. That club was delivered to him on the second hole.

He did not have a back-up driver, however. TaylorMade shipped him some heads, though, and he was able to experiment with a new driver after finishing Thursday’s round.

“Driver fatigue will occur over time, of course, for these guys that are hitting so many shots,” said a TaylorMade spokesman. “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. In this occasion, Dustin noticed a fine crack prior to play. He was able to switch into a strong 3-wood that he is using today.”

Johnson said the tee shot on No. 7 was the scariest. It’s not often that he’s worried about carrying a penalty area off the tee. “I was worried if I could cover the water,” he said. The breeze blowing through Liberty National only exacerbated the situation, as the 3-wood’s higher trajectory is more greatly impacted by the wind. He was helped by the fact that rain fell on Liberty National overnight, however.

“It wasn’t too bad,” he said. “I figured out a way to shoot a decent score.”

Johnson bogeyed his first hole of the day but rebounded with birdies at Nos. 3 and 6 before another bogey at the seventh hole. He reached 2 under with birdies at 13 and 16, but closed his round with a bogey on 18.

He still gained a half-shot off the tee and ranked in the middle of the field in driving distance with an average of exactly 300 yards. He hit just 10 greens after being left with longer approach shots. Another new club was his best of the day, as he gained nearly 3 strokes on the greens. He switched back to his TaylorMade Spider shortly before teeing off Thursday.

It was overshadowed by DJ’s driverless day, however.

“(It) threw me for a loop there because it was literally 10 minutes before I was teeing off when it happened,” Johnson said. “(I) managed to get a decent round in there.”