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Johnson Charges to Victory at the Barclays
No one was more fearless all week than Dustin Johnson, who closed with a six-under 65 for a two-stroke victory over the 36-hole leader Matt Kuchar. Johnson, who made only one bogey over his final 45 holes, moved to No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings by winning the PGA Tour’s first playoff event of the season with a 19-under-par 194 total. “Guys like Dustin Johnson can make golf seem really easy,” Kuchar said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen a guy drive the ball a whole lot better. For his length, it seems like he rarely goes off line. He might have missed a number of fairways today, but they weren’t big misses.” After shooting a 63 on Friday, Johnson said: “If you drive it in the fairway, you can attack it, every flag. It doesn’t matter if you’re coming in with a 3-iron or a wedge. You can get close to the hole, because the ball just hits and stops.” Johnson was not the only one thinking that way. Brandt Snedeker opened with five consecutive birdies and shot a course- and tournament-record 61 to climb from a tie for 29th at the start of the day to finish tied for third with Vijay Singh, three strokes behind Johnson. He moved to sixth from 18th in the FedCup standings. Y. E. Yang, the 2009 PGA Championship winner, made six consecutive birdies from Nos. 2 through 7, shooting a 63 to finish tied for sixth. Webb Simpson, who won his first PGA Tour title last week at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., also shot 63 to finish tied for 10th. Kuchar, who shot 68, moved into second place in the FedEx Cup standings. Nick Watney, the FedEx Cup leader entering the week, dropped to No. 3, but finished strong with a 64 to tie for 10th with Simpson and Charley Hoffman. Watney was one of five players to shoot 64 in the final round. The 27-year-old Johnson earned 1.44 million with his first win <a href="http://newerahatstock.com/famous-hat-c-13.html"><strong>famous hat</strong></a> of the year and fifth of his career. He moved to No. 3 on the PGA Tour money list and No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking. “I’ve played pretty well this year but just haven’t quite been able to get that win,” Johnson said. “The putter has been lacking a little bit. This week I finally rolled in some putts, so this feels really good.” Two key putts came on the seventh and ninth holes, where he rolled in birdies of 25 and 12 feet. The one on the ninth came after he blasted his tee shot 335 yards into the left greenside bunker. He sank both putts knowing Kuchar was in close for birdies, ones he would end up making. Earlier Johnson had holed out an 85-foot shot for eagle from the front greenside bunker on the 328-yard fourth hole. That gave him a one-stroke lead over Kuchar. “Walking into it, I’m like, this is the first time I’ve been in a bunker all week,” Johnson said. “I kind of didn’t know what to expect. My bunker <a href="http://newerahatstock.com/lacoste-hat-c-9.html"><strong>lacoste hat</strong></a> game this year has not been superb. So it wasn’t an easy bunker shot. It came out just right and went in the hole.” Johnson shot a 29 on the front nine for the second consecutive day. For the week, he played the front in 17 under par. “I don’t know what it is about the front, but I played pretty well on the front,” Johnson said. “I wish we could have just kept playing the front nine. I would have done really well this week.” Kuchar tied Johnson for the lead at 19 under by sinking a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-3 11th, but he took three strokes from the fringe on each of the next two holes for a bogey on each. That proved the difference. “I had two basic three-putts, and that seems just very uncharacteristic for me,” said Kuchar, who parred the last five holes as did Johnson, who parred the last nine. “I felt like I was just giving shots away. You understand a few bad shots here and there, but for me three-putts are kind of out of the order.” Notes Eight players moved into the top 100 on the FedEx Cup points list to advance to the Deutsche Bank Championship next weekend outside of Boston. The biggest move was made by Camilo Villegas, whose final-round 65 allowed him to finish tied for sixth and move up 58 spots in the standings to No. 51. The other seven were Chris Stroud, Ian Poulter, Padraig Harrington, Bill Lunke, William McGirt, John Merrick, and Ernie Els. Those falling out of the top 100 were Bryce Molder, Hunter Haas, Chris DiMarco, Paul Goydos, Nick O’Hern, Matt Bettencourt, Tim Herron, and Michael Bradley.
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