Sports psychologists might not like it, but Steve Stricker’s ‘cut the fluff’ mentality let his team enjoy themselves, and win
The way Justin Thomas tells it, Dustin Johnson’s one frustration was that he didn’t win even more points in the Ryder Cup. “Poor guy went out there, tried to get six points, but all he could do was five,” Thomas joked. Of course there’s only five points available, but Johnson is a man who once missed a key putt by six feet because he was holding the green-reading book upside down, and who blew a one-shot lead at the US PGA in 2010 because he didn’t realise he was standing in a bunker.
One anonymous fellow pro was repeatedly quoted describing Johnson and his brother as “dumb and dumber”. Over the years, as Johnson peeled off all those weeks at the top of the world rankings, his victories at the US Open and the Masters, and his clean sweep of all five matches in the Ryder Cup last week, you started to wonder who the joke was on.
