Johnson out of top-5 for the first time since 2016

If you were thinking Dustin Johnson has been off the boil lately, then you’d be right.

It’s not like he’s taken a David Duval-style fall off the cliff, it’s simply a lack of consistent top-10 finishes that have seen him drop out of the world’s top-5 players this week for the first time in four years.

Johnson kisses the 2016 US Open trophy (Credit: USGA)

The 36-year-old, who previously reigned as World No.1 for a total of 91 weeks, has seen his form slowly slip away since a pair of runner-up finishes at the Masters and PGA Championship last year.

Johnson’s best result in the second half of 2019 was a pair of T20’s at the RBC Canadian Open and WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

This year got off to a better start with a T7 in Hawaii but when those around you include the likes of the Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Webb Simpson, you can’t afford to have too many bad weeks.

If you felt sorry for DJ, spare a thought for our very own Jason Day, who has endured a far more precipitous fall in the world rankings to his lowest mark since 2010.

Day and Johnson consistently traded blows inside the top-10 for many years and it was Johnson, who ended Day’s 46-week reign as World No.1 in February 2017 after winning the Genesis Open. Johnson then held that title for 64 weeks straight before a young upstart named Justin Thomas came along in May 2018.

Day’s stats over the past two seasons are littered with MC’s and WD’s, the result of ongoing injury concerns. It hasn’t been all bad though, with a 4th place just a few months ago at Pebble Beach and a T8 finish at last year’s Travelers Championship.

Hopefully the Queenslander can end his streak of missed cuts this week and find the kind of form that promised so much just a few years ago.