SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Dustin Johnson was one shot out of the lead Friday in the U.S. Open as he walked onto the tee on the par-3 11th, looking like the major contender he once was instead of someone who had been MIA on golf's biggest stages since leaving for LIV Golf.
And then it all changed in a New York minute.
Four holes later, he was 11 shots behind and scrambling just to make it to the weekend at Shinnecock Hills.
“Just rocks,” Johnson said.
It was a little more than pebbles in the sand that caused this stunning meltdown in the second round, but it left him a little dazed and more than a little frustrated.
His mishaps started on the 11th when a gust knocked down his tee shot and it wound up in the right bunker. The next shot came out soft, rolled back down the false front into another bunker, and he failed to get up-and-down, making double bogey.
“Where I was standing it felt firm, but it came out soft,” he said of the first sand shot. “These bunkers are very difficult — or at least I'm having a hard time with it.”
Two soft bogeys followed, one of them on the 13th hole when he had a lob wedge from a 117 yards that went so far it landed on the slope at the back of the green. His pitch went past the pin and off the green and he had to scramble from there.
But the real damage came on the 15th from the right rough, and a shot that wound up in the right bunker guarding the green. He thought that would be fine, an easy place to make par, until it was anything but that.
His first shot took a hard turn to the left, went down the false front and into the left bunker. The next shot stayed in the bunker. The third one was a rocket that sailed over the green and caused two volunteers sitting next to the grandstand to scramble for cover.
“Three in a row with rocks,” Johnson said. “I hit a rock coming out and it shot it straight left. The next one hit a rock and it came out soft. And the third one hit rock and went into the ball.”
When he chipped cautiously to avoid going back into the bunker, he had a 25-foot putt that nervously ran 3 1/2 by the hole. He made that for 8.
The upside is he should be safe for the weekend, his third straight cut he made in the majors. But he couldn't help but wonder where he could have been except for the rocks.
“It's the ones you can't see," Johnson said. “Obviously, the big ones on top you can move them. I could see them but there we in the sand, and it's one of those things whether you can move them. If I move them it would improve my lie.”
At least he bounced back by hammering a drive — his ball speed has measured as high as 194 mph this week — and a 7-wood to 25 feet on the 615-yard 16th hole for a two-putt birdie. He finished with a pair of pars for a 77 and was at 3-over 143.
Most frustrating is Johnson, who is in the last year of his U.S. Open exemption from winning in 2016 at Oakmont, felt like he was on the right track. He made a rash decision to change back to the old loft on his irons before the LIV event in South Korea, finished fourth and then tied for fifth in Spain.
And here he was, chasing Wyndham Clark until he was hanging on by the seat of his pants. He lost an opportunity, but not all hope.
“The swing is good. I feel good,” Johnson said. “On this golf course, you're never really out of it. A couple of good days, I can get back in the mix.”
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