Dustin Johnson won has won his first green jacket with a final round 68 for a course-record 20-under, to win the 84th Masters Tournament.
Johnson shot 7-under-par 65s in the first and third rounds, making him the first player with multiple rounds of 65 or below in the same Masters.
Johnson’s play is a continuation of his last few months. The world’s No. 1 ranked player has finished no worse than sixth in his past seven starts, including victories in the Tour Championship and the Northern Trust. In September, he won the FedEx Cup and was named PGA Tour player of the year.
In a moment that we have rarely seen from Johnson, he was emotional after the victory when speaking with the media at Augusta National and found it hard to verbally explain what the win meant to him.
“It’s a dream come true,” Johnson said, with his voice wavering and as he wiped away tears on the international broadcast.
“As a kid I always dreamed about being a Master Champion… it’s hard to talk… it’s just incredible, obviously, as you can tell.”
Once he had received the green jacket from last year’s champion Tiger Woods and had composed himself, Johnson spoke a lot easier to the media about why this was so important.
“Growing up so close to here, its always been a tournament since Ive been on tour and since I played my first Masters it’s been the tournament I wanted to win the most.
“Being close the last couple of years, finished in second last year to Tiger, this one was something I really wanted to do.
“Obviously starting today with a four-shot lead I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, I was going to have to play well if I wanted to win.”
“2020 has been a really strange year, but its been good to me.”
Johnson finished 5 shots ahead of Australian Cameron Smith and South Korean Sungjae Im who finished on 15-under. Smith’s rounds of 67, 68, 69 and 69 for the final round meant he is now the only person in Masters history to shoot under 70 in all four rounds of the tournament.
Justin Thomas had a 2-under 70 to finish on 12-under while Rory McIlroy and Dylan Frittelli tied for 5th on 11-under.
For the seven-time Masters Champion, Tiger Woods had a final round to forget. Woods made the highest single-hole score of his career, a head-shaking septuple-bogey 10 on the par-3 12th and ended up in the water three times.
At the 155-yard hole – the shortest but arguably most precarious at Augusta National – Woods hit his ball into the bank short of the green and watched as it rolled into Rae’s Creek. He took a drop and hit what appeared to be a safe shot to the middle of the putting surface, but the ball began spinning back, seeming to stop at one point yet continuing on into the creek.
Woods blew his next shot into the back bunker, where he now lay 5. Faced with a difficult stance, he bent his knees and hit the ball over the green into the water once more. He took a drop in the bunker, splashed a shot onto the green and two-putted for a 10.
Never one to give up, Woods proceeded to play his last six holes in 5-under par. He closed with four birdies in a row to shoot 76 for the day and minus-1 overall. He ended up tied for 38th place.
After the round, the 15-time major champion was philosophical about his adventurous day.
“This is unlike any other sport,” he said, “in which you’re so alone out there and you have to figure it out and you have to fight and no one is going to pull you off the bump. You just have to figure it out, and I did coming in.”
Today we found out that Tiger Woods is human after all…#TheMasters pic.twitter.com/R84VTRMAtX
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) November 15, 2020
