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Dustin Johnson seemed to be playing a different tournament as he completed one of the phenomenal victories of his career, winning the Northern Trust by a whopping 11 shots. Playing his final two holes in near darkness after play was stopped because of a storm delay, Johnson parred the 17th and birdied the 18th to complete a round of 8-under 63 and reach 30-under for the week. His brilliant form over the week yielded rounds of 67-60-64-63 for a total of 254 over four days at Norton in Massachusetts.
Johnson’s 22nd victory on the PGA TOUR career and his fifth FedExCup Playoffs event also carried him to the top of the World rankings and the FedExCup standings.
The next man was Harris English (69) at 19-under 265 and Daniel Berger (67) was third at 18-under. Scottie Scheffler, who shot 59 in the second round and was second after third round, slipped to Tied-4th as his caddie took ill midway through.
Johnson fell short by one of the PGA Tour scoring record of 31-under par by Ernie Els at the Par-73 Kapalua Resort Plantation Course in 2003, and the total of 253 at the Par-70 Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii by Justin Thomas at the Sony Open in 2017.
In a week where 5-under was hardly something to write about, Tiger Woods still took some positives as he closed the week with 5-under 66 as he goes into next week’s BMW Championship. Coming into the Northern Trust placed 49th, Woods slipped to 57th and needs to finish inside Top-30 to get to the Tour Championships he won in 2018 to signal his return.
“I wish I would have played a little bit better this week to make it a little bit easier on me next week to try and get into East Lake,” said Woods, who qualifies for the BMW Championship for being Top 70.
Woods hit 10 of 14 fairways and 16 of the 18 greens, but took 31 putts, including some long ones.
If Woods plays well at the BMW Championship and gets into the TOUR Championship, it will be a busy stretch with the Tour Championship, two Majors and his own tournament, the Hero World Challenge.
Missing out on the BMW and the Tour Championship are players like Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Ian Poulter, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Keegan Bradley and Brandt Snedeker,
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