Dustin Johnson turns rough day into 1‑shot lead at East Lake

ATLANTA — The final hole at East Lake brought two strange sights Sat­ur­day at the Tour Championship.

First, Rory McIl­roy hit a shot that top­pled out of thick rough right into the water in front of him, a dis­tance laser cam­eras esti­mat­ed at 85 feet, 8 inch­es, not account­ing for how far it sank to the bottom.

Then, Dustin John­son reached his dri­ve and could see the entire golf ball in the grass. It was in the first cut, sure, but a relief con­sid­er­ing he didn’t hit a fair­way over the final three hours.

It was a rare green light for John­son, and he hit 5‑iron to 30 feet for a two-putt birdie and an even-round 70, allow­ing to escape with a one-shot lead over Sung­jae Im at the halfway point of the chase for the FedEx Cup and the $15 mil­lion prize.

John­son head­ed straight to the range to try to fig­ure out why he hit only two fair­way, though he was sat­is­fied to have so few chances and still stay in front.

“Two dif­fer­ent golf cours­es if you’re play­ing from the fair­way or play­ing from the rough,” John­son said. “Play­ing from the fair­way you can attack the course, you can shoot a good score. Play­ing from where I did, it’s not so much fun. But I man­aged my game pret­ty well, and pleased with the score that I shot, espe­cial­ly the way I drove the ball.”

McIl­roy also shrugged off his shot, in which he tried to do too much with a gnarly lie, not so much to get over the water but a bunker on the right side. It cost him a bogey for a 71 that left him five behind, though he could see a big­ger picture.

“It doesn’t look like I’m going to lose any ground today any­way, which is some sort of con­so­la­tion,” he said.

That might have been the best take after a sec­ond round filled with birdies and blun­ders. The next 36 holes are all about oppor­tu­ni­ty for the nine play­er sep­a­rat­ed by just five shots.

As well as John­son has been play­ing — two run­ner-up fin­ish­es and an 11-shot vic­to­ry in his last three starts — there was a chance he could have tak­en his two-shot lead at the start of the tour­na­ment and run away with it.

John­son, with rounds of 67–70 along with start­ing at 10 under as the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup, was at 13 under.

Im, the bud­ding star from South Korea whose game had gone luke­warm com­ing out of the three-month shut­down, birdied three of his last four holes for a 64 and will be in the final group with Johnson.

Xan­der Schauf­fele, who won the Tour Cham­pi­onship as a rook­ie in 2017, ran off three straight birdies late in his round for a 65 and was two shots behind. Anoth­er big move came from PGA cham­pi­on Collin Morikawa, whose 66 put him four shots out of the lead.

John­son hit the fair­way on the first and fifth holes — both pars. He still man­aged a birdie on No. 8 when he drove into a bunker, came up short of the green and chipped in from 40 feet, both the par 5s and on No. 3, where he made a 40-footer.

“I feel like I got my two bad rounds out of the way and I got two good ones com­ing, where the oth­er guys, they’ve shot some good scores,” John­son said. “My game feels good. I’ve still got a lot of con­fi­dence in every­thing I’m doing. Just I’ve got to hit it in the fair­way. That’s pret­ty simple.”

He wasn’t alone in his struggles.

Justin Thomas pulled with­in one shot until he couldn’t con­vert birdie chances and then drove so far left on the 18th that he had to pitch out side­ways, lead­ing to bogey and a 71.

Jon Rahm again was keep­ing stride with John­son until he found the water off the tee at the par‑3 15th and made dou­ble bogey, fol­lowed by a wild dri­ve that led to bogey on the 16th. He shot a 74, nine shots worse than his open­ing round. That left him four shots behind at 9 under.

That’s what was so mad­den­ing for Thomas, who felt like he was hit­ting it well enough from tee to green. He ranks last in the 30-man field in putting, which would not sur­prise him.

“I should have nev­er shot over par today with how well I played,” he said. “I just made absolute­ly nothing.”

That much was evi­dent when his 6‑foot par putt swirled in and out of the cup, and Thomas gave it a sar­cas­tic thumbs-up.

Rahm was frus­trat­ed as ever, main­ly because he couldn’t cap­i­tal­ize when he was in the fair­way and felt it was anoth­er round at East Lake that would cost him. Now, how­ev­er, he’s still only four shots behind with 36 holes remain­ing and $15 mil­lion still very much up for grabs.

“The clos­est I came from the fifth hole on to make a birdie was that bunker shot on 18,” he said of his third shot from behind the green. “That’s the best look I had all day. It’s just one of those days. But like you said, the men­tal­i­ty is right now we’ve played two days of the tour­na­ment. I’m four back going into the week­end. Any­thing can happen.”

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