Presented by ZAMZOWS.
This Day In Sports…August 15, 2010, 15 years ago today:
Controversy reigns at the end of the final round of the PGA Championship in Haven, WI. It looked like Martin Kaymer, Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson, all tied at 11-under-par, were headed for a three-way playoff. But veteran rules official David Price assessed Johnson a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker on No. 18 and dropped into a tie for fifth place. Kaymer and Watson advanced to the playoff, and it was Kaymer who would be victorious.
Johnson had taken a one-shot lead going into the final hole after birdies on Nos. 16 and 17. He then ended up deep in the gallery on a sandy patch next to the 18th fairway that was designated as a bunker. The difficult Whistling Straits course featured almost 1,000 bunkers, but Johnson claimed he didn’t realize he was in one of them when he fatefully touched his club to the ground. It was only after he bogeyed the hole to apparently fall into the playoff that the ruling was handed down.
Many feel to this day that Johnson was robbed. In a Golf Digest article, David Feherty, then a golf reporter for CBS, said, “One of the worst decisions in the history of major championship golf was penalizing him there.” But others say Johnson could have prevented the heartbreak. He’s known as a fast player, and that situation warranted hitting the pause button. It didn’t look like a bunker, but there was enough sand around that he could have summoned a rules official for clarification.
Johnson was 26 at the time and had never won a major, so it was a crushing moment for him. He captured a tour victory in each of his first 13 seasons—only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had better tour starts—but those major championships are tough. Johnson tied for second at the 2011 Open Championship and again at the 2015 U.S. Open. He finally got over the hump by winning the 2016 U.S. Open and followed that with a title in the 2020 Masters, setting a record by carding a 268 (20 under par). Johnson’s been playing on the LIV Tour since 2022.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.
