In Firestone's melancholy farewell, Zach Johnson seizes his first senior major in dominating style
AKRON, Ohio — There are some days in golf when a player just doesn’t “have it,” when the game is hard, the shots are off. The key is to still have “something.” And that’s how Zach Johnson won the Kaulig Companies Championship Sunday at Firestone Country Club.
A rookie on the PGA Tour Champions after turning 50 in February, Johnson is literally the last man standing at a venue that will cease to host a professional event after this year, ending a 72-year run due to a lack of sponsorship and waning fan support.
Struggling with his driver much of the day on a course that demands accuracy off the tee, Johnson had no choice but to grind out a score on the difficult South Course on a humid and windless afternoon. His scrambling two-under 68 enabled him to register a six-stroke victory over Boo Weekley that was tougher than the margin suggests.
Johnson birdied his final three holes to come home in 15-under 265 in his first visit to Firestone since 2017. The two-time major winner pocketed $525,000 and earned an invitation to next year’s Players Championship by winning what is essentially the Senior Players Championship.
“It was hard today,” Johnson said with a sigh of relief. “Hitting the middle of the face on the driver and not even coming close to hitting fairways is not something I’m accustomed to. But you said it, golf’s hard. And I was off, there’s no other explanation other than I was off. Now, I finished well. I say all that, for the most part I know when it’s off, I know where to miss it. I can manage it. I feel very fortunate. The finish was ridiculous.”
He managed to all but seal the win with a timely birdie on the par-4 11th hole as he fought to hold off defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez after beginning the final round with a four-stroke lead. Having flown a 7-iron over the green, Johnson faced a tough pitch from heavy rough while Jimenez was set up from eight feet. When his ball meandered into the hole for an unlikely birdie, a stunned Johnson stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head in disbelief. Jimenez then lipped out his birdie try and the lead ballooned to five.
“Holy moly,” Johnson replied when asked about the 11th hole. “I’m trying to get it in a six-foot circle and it dripped in. That was a turning point.”
Johnson bogeyed the next two holes, but a deflated Jimenez had his own troubles with bogeys on four of his last six holes for a 74 to fall all the way to T-8. On Saturday, Jimenez shot his age with a bogey-free 62, tying the tournament record.
Weekley closed with a 66 for nine-under 271, while Rory Sabbatini also shot 66 and was another stroke back for solo third. But they were never a legitimate threat.
Johnson hit only five of 14 fairways—but a mere two of his first 11. He added seven greens in regulation. Yet the Iowa native still managed to break par for his third PGA Tour Champions victory and first of the senior major variety. He capped his round by rattling in a chip for birdie by hacking out of a thick lie just off the green.
The shot was one more memorable stroke at a place that has seen so many since first welcoming the tour in 1954 with the Rubber City Open. It was a perfect sendoff. Next year, the event becomes the Hoag Senior Players Championship and moves to Newport Beach Country Club in California. Johnson will defend his title on the other side of the country.
“It’s kind of bittersweet if it really truly is the last year,” Johnson said. “I love this place. I love it. I’ve loved it since I first stepped foot on it. I just think it fits me; it fits my eye, but it fits me in the sense that you can’t fake it around here. May have looked like that a little bit today, but you have to execute shots.
“I know it sounds like we’re not coming back next year,” he added. “I’m the ever optimist. I feel like this place and its history, it’s stood the test of time.”
It just couldn’t stand the test of these times.
