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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

June 14, 2011

Dustin Johnson

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

BETH MURRISON: We're very happy to have with us here Dustin Johnson, who is playing in his fourth U.S. Open here at Congressional. He was in contention a year ago at Pebble Beach. He's had a fine 2011 with four top-10 finishes, including a 4th place finish at the Memorial just two weeks ago.
Can you talk a little bit about the U.S. Open and coming to Congressional and what's special about this week.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: You know, the U.S. Open is one of the four majors. It's one of the best majors that we play in. And it's always a very good test of golf. So I really -- I enjoy playing the U.S. Open.
Last year I had a chance to win, which hopefully I'll have one again this year. It's always at great venues, and they always set it up very hard, but it's very fair. This year it's a very fair golf course, and the golf course is in great shape. I'm really looking forward to playing it this year.
BETH MURRISON: How do you feel about how you've been playing thus far this year? Obviously you've had some great results and some nice finishes this year. How do you feel your game is right now?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I feel like in the last couple of weeks or the last month or so the game is starting to get really good and I'm really feeling comfortable with the game. I'm starting to swing well and starting to hit it where I want to. I'm getting excited again.

Q. How long did it take you to get over what happened at Pebble, or is that something you ever get over until you win one?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: It didn't take very long at all. I'm pretty sure I was done with it by Monday morning when I woke up.

Q. Just to kind of expand on that, how do you get over something like that? Were you already processing it as the round was ending that day, just because it kind of went south early?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: No, I just talked to Butch when we got done and we just talked about the round a little bit. But there was really nothing bad I could take from it other than it was definitely a learning curve. I definitely learned a lot from that round. I just tried to take the positives out of it and move forward. At the PGA I got in the same situation and I really played well. I was in the last group the last day at the PGA.
Everybody remembers the 18th hole, but they forget about I birdied 16 and 17 to get a one-shot lead going into 18.

Q. Mike Davis was talked about earlier and Phil and others talked about today about the setup of the course favoring those who knew how to recover who could hit 8, 9 wedge out of the rough to greens The Open hasn't allowed. Does that particularly help your game, and who else's would it help a lot?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Well, in the past few years or the past few Opens I've played in, they've done a great job of setting it up fair where if you just barely miss a fairway you're not chipping it back in and chipping it back out. They've done a great job here, I think, with the rough. If you miss it off line a substantial amount, then it's going to be in some deep rough and you're going to have a lot of trouble getting it on the green or up around the green. But if you just barely hit it off the fairway the rough is cut just low enough to where you can try and gamble and hit a shot on the green. But you're not going to be able to control it very much.
So it definitely helps. I think it helps me a lot just being able to hack it out of there and maybe getting one on the green or getting it up around the front.

Q. International players have won the last four and five out of the last six majors. Is that something American players are aware of, and do you think it's just cyclical or does it signal some sort of power shift?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: The only reason I know is because I think about three different people have asked me. But I had no idea or I never really thought about it. But we all try to win every time we come out. So it's not like we're not trying or not playing well. I think the American guys are playing really good. A lot of things have to go right to win a major, and obviously the guys that have won the last four majors have played really good golf, and that's what you have to do to win a major. It's four rounds, and you've got to play four really good rounds.

Q. You played -- what have you thought about the green speeds? How do they seem like they're rolling? There was a little bit of concern that they could be getting a little bit tight, maybe they're losing them a little bit.
DUSTIN JOHNSON: You know, it's only Tuesday, but I think the course is in great shape. The greens are rolling good. At a U.S. Open they always stress the greens a little bit. They look pretty good to me, though. I don't see any issue with them.

Q. You're a long hitter and this is a very long course. You're approach to driving, though, given how tight the fairways are and the rough, do you still try to just go all out and hit it as far as you can on holes you're hitting driver, how do you approach that, the tradeoff between accuracy and distance?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I try to hit every drive I hit in the fairway. This course there's -- there's quite a few holes I can hit driver on. It's a mix, you know. I hit a few 3-irons off the tees. I hit a couple of 3-woods. I hit a few drivers. It's a good mix of clubs that I hit. It's not -- I'm not hitting driver on every hole and I'm not hitting iron off every tee. I think it's a great mix for me.
Me and Joe, we're working on a game plan and our game plan is to hit whatever club we have the best chance of getting in the fairway. If it's wide where we hit the driver, we'll hit the driver. If it narrows up wherever the driver is going to go, we're going to hit a 3-wood. We just kind of are taking what the golf course gives us.

Q. Given what you went through last year at Pebble Beach, I wonder when you watched Nick Watney going through the same thing at the PGA and then Rory go through the same thing this year at the Masters, was there any empathy seeing what those guys went through, sort of similar to what you went through?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, it's not a good spot to be in. It's definitely for that day it's definitely not fun. You try to look like you're having as much fun as possible, but it's just not fun.
So you feel for them. You know obviously especially if most of the guys out here, especially a lot of good players, they've all gone through the same thing. They've all done it. It's a learning process that I think everybody is going to go through at least once in their career. So it's not -- you can't look at it as a bad thing. You've got to learn from it and move on, which Rory and Nick are great players and they're both good friends of mine. I think they handled it just as well as you can. And you've just got to learn from it.

Q. Talk about your good friend Zack Byrd qualifying. You've been together a little bit this week. Talk about him being here, and is that fun for you?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah, it's great. I played four years of golf with Zack at Coastal. We had a great run. We played -- our team was pretty good when we were playing on it. He's a good little player. He's starting to play pretty good golf here lately. I think it's great for him to qualify for The Open and get to play in it. And it's nice to have one of my teammates out here to play. We played a practice round yesterday together.

Q. For a long time Phil was known as the best player to have never won a major until he broke through. He said sitting on a 54-hole lead, talking about that pressure, and if you hoist the trophy, these visions of this in your mind, it's kind of the worst thing you can do. When you look back on it, is there anything you would change? You talked about how you took it as a learning experience. What was it you learned and took that would help you this year?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: I didn't do anything bad. I slept fine. I wasn't -- I never thought about winning. Obviously I knew I still had one more day left. And at a U.S. Open anything can happen. A three-shot lead is not very much. I had a great warmup that morning. I went out. I felt good. I had a great first hole. I hit it down the fairway, hit it on the green and two-putted, hit it down the middle in two. And came out of a wedge just a little bit, hit it a little thin and came up short right. If it comes back in the bunker it's an easy shot. But it stayed up on top and in knee high rough. So it was just a tough shot. And I tried -- instead of maybe trying to just save a bogey, I was trying to get it up and down and ended up making triple. There's nothing I really could have done different. Could have been a wedge shot.
I learned a lot about myself, though. Even after that situation I never got mad. I wasn't mad or did anything that I thought was -- didn't make any bad decisions. But I just -- I really got fast, especially after that, after making 7 there, going to the next hole. I really got fast with everything. I started walking a little faster, swinging faster, just going through my routine faster.
When I was in the same situation at the PGA I just really slowed down. I felt like I walked slower. I did everything just a little bit slower, just was a lot more patient.

Q. You talked about the game plan that you and Joe are coming up with. Can you specifically go through some key holes, being a bomber at No. 6, 16 and 18. What would be your plan on those? I know it would change with the weather, but tentatively what's the plan?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Well, obviously got to hit the fairway. But 18, you know, start on 18, any ball in the fairway is good there. If you hit it in the rough you're really going to struggle. If you hit it in the rough you're just trying to get it down to the front. They give you a good bit of room to -- if you're in the rough you can kind of run it up there. You've got to hit a pretty good shot, but you can still run it down to the front edge. I think the last -- I hit it in the rough today and I just kind of hacked a 7-iron out down to the very front of the green and two-putted.
It's just a tough hole. Even if you hit it in the fairway, you're really not trying to fly it much past the front of the green because it gets so narrow in that back left corner.
16 is a great hole. They shaved down the right side and the back of it, so if you're going for the green and you push it a little bit or hit it too far, then the ball is going to run off into some not-so-good areas. You have to be cautious when you're going in to either miss it a little left in that front bunker, which is a fairly easy bunker shot, or -- if I'm going for it I'm trying to land it short and bounce it up. I'm not going to try to fly it all the way there, because if it comes up short of the green it's a really easy pitch.
And then 6. 6 is all about where you can get your tee ball. If you get it in the fairway you can have a go at it. I think today we had 4-iron in or something. But just all depends on the wind there.

Q. Did you hit driver on 3?
DUSTIN JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to get it as far down as I can on those holes.
BETH MURRISON: Dustin, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it and we wish you well this week.

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