After his third round at The Open, Dustin Johnson talked about the difficulty of Royal Troon’s back nine.
Dustin Johnson played alongside fellow LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka on Saturday at The Open, and they combined to make one birdie during the third round.
That’s how difficult Royal Troon became. A steady rain and a strong breeze blew across the Ayrshire course in the afternoon, a complete departure from the benign conditions that players saw earlier in the day.
“The back nine, that’s the hardest nine holes I think you could ever play in golf right now, with the wind and rain,” Johnson said.
“It’s so long I could barely reach the par-4s. I had to smash two to get there; same with Brooks. That’s how long it was playing. It’s tough.”
Plenty of players had to hit 3-woods into Troon’s lengthy par-4s on the back-nine. Heck, Daniel Brown and Shane Lowry—playing in the final pairing—hit drivers off the deck on the par-4 15th, and both players still came up short.
“It was very difficult out there,” Johnson added.
“Obviously warming up, it was dry. Then you get out there, and you’ve got to adjust through the round on the speed of the greens. It just made it kind of tough.”
Johnson holed a long birdie putt from off the fringe at the par-3 14th but doubled the brutal par-3 17th, the hole where Si Woo Kim made an ace earlier in the day. He signed for a 1-over 72, a solid score given the conditions. Koepka, meanwhile, shot a 7-over 78.
“I felt like I played really, really well,” Johnson said.
“Can’t really complain about my round—1-over is not a bad score. Obviously, the double on 17 was really [tough]. But that was about as high as I could have shot. I played better golf than that. It was just tough.”
Matthew Jordan, who played in the group behind Johnson and Koepka, echoed these sentiments.
“That back nine was just so tough,” Jordan said.
“I was hitting clubs into there from yardages that I probably did when I was like 13 or 14. It was just a complete grind.”
Only nine players are under-par through 54 holes as Royal Troon continues to show its teeth.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
