AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dustin Johnson is scheduled to be at Butler Cabin on Sunday evening, covering his green jacket over the shoulders of the Masters champion.
This will be his only official appearance at Augusta National this weekend.
Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player and reigning Masters champion, avoided three of his last four holes on Friday and lost the size by two shots. He is the eleventh defending champion to lose the 36-hole cut.
“Obviously, I wanted to be there over the weekend,” Johnson said. “I like this golf course. I feel like I’m playing very well. I just didn’t get along very well. It’s pretty simple.
Johnson was the eldest, though hardly the only big name, to give up.
Lee Westwood’s streak of 12 consecutive cuts in Masters appearances is over; he was over 5 years old. So is Rory McIlroy’s 10-consecutive career playing weekend at Augusta National; he was 6 years old and his mission to complete the Grand Slam race will have to wait until 2022. Brooks Koepka is going home soon for the first time in six Masters appearances.
The top 50 players and draws make the cut at the Masters; this year, that meant 3 or 10 shots back from leader Justin Rose.
Koepka arrived at Augusta National less than a month after surgery on his right knee, to repair a dislocated patella and some ligament problems. If it weren’t for the Masters, I wouldn’t have played this week, or several more weeks.
Being Augusta, he fired a shot. He shot 75 on Friday, losing the cut twice to 5 over.
“What a disappointment do you think I am?” Koepka said. “I worked my (ass) just to get here and then playing like that is pretty disappointing.”
He will now take a long break. He said he might not try to compete again until the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island, which will begin on May 20th.
“I won’t miss it, I know,” Koepka said. “But it’s hard to say if I’ll play anything sooner, just by how it feels, how the rehabilitation is going and everything.”
Johnson’s absence is clearly the biggest surprise toward the weekend.
He fired a 74 on Thursday and left no room for error during the stretch on Friday; then he needed a miracle that never came. Johnson’s throw at par-4a 18 landed in a fairway bunker, his focus didn’t even make the green and his chip that needed to be drilled to play the weekend didn’t come close.
That was the end, though not the whole undoing.
Johnson reached the green at par-5 15th in two, albeit temporarily, with the ball spinning back down the slope, toward the water and leading to a bogey that placed him right on the 3-yard line. above.
A T-shirt shot in the pine straw on the 17th resulted in another bogey. Soon, he was an officer. After setting the Masters goal record last November, finishing 20 under, his title defense ended abruptly.
“I just didn’t get along very well,” Johnson said.
Sergio Garcia, in 2018, was the most recent Masters champion to return next year and missed the cut. Garcia missed again this year, by just one shot, after dropping in two of his last four holes.
“Viously, obviously, it’s disappointing because I love the Masters,” Garcia said. “If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t care. You know, it’s … it would be nice to sometimes get a little more love from the course, you know?”
Four of the top 12 players in the world – Johnson, Patrick Cantlay’s No. 10, Koepka’s No. 11 and McIlroy’s No. 12 – failed. So did Sungjae Im, a player in the top 20, who tied for second place last year, and Dylan Frittelli, who finished fifth at Augusta National last November. I wasn’t even close, shooting 77-80 missing for 10 shots, and Cantlay finished at 8 for missing the five-point cut.
Some got it for the first time, including Matt Jones, who shot a Friday under 3 under 69 and hit 1 minor during the week.
“Making the cut was always the first goal,” Jones said.
Such was the case for everyone. And for 34 of the 88 headlines, it worked that way.
“That’s right,” Garcia said. “Sometimes things don’t want to happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.