Oakmont triumph lifts Johnson up to third in rankings

The USGA, which slapped Dustin Johnson with a controversial one-stroke penalty on Sunday, issued a statement saying it regretted “the distraction” caused by the way it handled assessing the penalty on the eventual victor.

Despite Dustin Johnson’s deserved win, the tournament will be best remembered for the USGA ruling of Johnson on the fifth green, and notifying him on the 12th tee of a potential one-shot penalty.

But the victory did not come easy as despite leading by two at the 12th tee, he had the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, not knowing whether or not he would be handed a one-shot penalty for a “ball moving” on the fifth green.

“We had that conversation with Dustin”. “They said, ‘What did cause the ball to move?’ He said ‘I don’t know.’ We all know they can move anytime”. At the time of the infraction, Johnson was informed there would be no penalty and he made the putt for par. As he was preparing to ground his putter behind the ball, the ball seemed to move backward. Johnson correctly consulted the rules official and at that moment he was not penalised.

“I’ve had a lot of opportunities that I didn’t quite get done, so this one’s definitely really sweet”, Johnson said after the tournament.

“Thomas being our lead rules expert, I wanted him to look at it as well”.

By the time the final round was over, what began like a story line cribbed from the movie “Caddyshack” – “Cinderella boy about to become the U.S. Open champion!” – turned into an all-too-familiar, crash-and-burn tale from more than one final round of a major championship.

In an interview afterwards, Furyk said that his one regret was not getting the ball onto the fairway at the 18th hole as he felt it could have made things interesting.

He has already claimed the unofficial “fifth major” with his triumph at the Bridgestone Invitational a year ago and it is now just 7/1 that Lowry will win a major by the end of 2018. He initially appeared to have bogeyed the hole, which would have put him into a three-hole playoff with Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer.

This was a player who gave away his shot at a PGA Championship by grounding his club on the final hole in a hazard he didn’t understand. Kaymer eventually won the playoff.

Now, the USGA’s executive director and CEO, Mike Davis, has admitted as much and told reporters that the organization would like a “mulligan” over the penalty that was assessed to Johnson. “We asked if there was some other reason the ball could have moved”.

The penalty had no bearing on the outcome, other than to add a stroke to his winning score (276) and reduce his margin of victory from four shots to three.