"The last time I was No 1, I think I stayed there for quite some time, and another goal of mine is just to see how long I can stay at No 1"
Monday 24 August 2020 10:57, UK
Dustin Johnson has set his sights on an extended run at the top of the world rankings following his dominant 11-shot win at The Northern Trust.
Johnson feels he is back in similar form to when he was first ranked world No 1 in 2017, a position he held for 64 consecutive weeks, and his 25th professional victory at TPC Boston has taken him back to the summit for the sixth time.
The 36-year-old has spent a total of 92 weeks as world No 1, good enough for fifth on the all-time list, and he now hopes to buck the trend of the "jumping around" at the summit in recent weeks, with the top ranking changing hands four times since mid-July.
"It's something that I'm very proud of is to be No 1 in the world, and I'd like to stay there for a little while," said Johnson, whose winning score of 30 under par was just one shy of the PGA Tour record set by Ernie Els in 2003.
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"Obviously it's been jumping around a bunch here the last few months, but you know, the last time I was No 1, I think I stayed there for quite some time, and another goal of mine is just to see how long I can stay at No 1."
Johnson won the Travelers Championship in June but then failed to break 80 in two poor rounds in his next start at The Memorial, although he looked on course for a second major win at the PGA Championship earlier this month only to be outplayed by Collin Morikawa on the final day.
"I got my form back I think, and hopefully it's good when it's the same for all four days," he added. "Obviously I've had some tournaments where I play good a couple of rounds but not four straight rounds.
"All week, I felt like I was swinging the same, I was striking it the same and I controlled my golf ball very well. So it was a lot of what I was doing when I was playing really well in 2017.
"So that obviously feels really good, and I feel like the putting is starting to come around and I'm rolling the putter really nicely. I've got a lot of confidence in the golf swing right now, so I'm really looking forward to these next couple of weeks."
Johnson also insisted it did not take long to get over his PGA Championship disappointment as he felt he did little wrong on the final day in San Francisco, where his closing 68 left him two shots adrift of the impressive Morikawa.
"Obviously you can learn some stuff from the PGA, but I didn't feel like I really did anything wrong there," Johnson said. "I played pretty solid on Sunday.
"Generally, you shoot 68 on Sunday in a major with the lead on a tough golf course, you're going to win most of the time. So obviously Collin just played very, very well.
"But it wasn't something that I was disappointed in or anything like that, because I felt like I played well. It wasn't like I didn't play good or I struggled in the final round or something like that. I did make a big putt on 18 to get up into second place, so obviously there was a lot of positives I could take from that week.
"Then went home and took a few days off, and then got back to work. The game started feeling really good, or it has been feeling really good. I was really looking forward to coming into this week."
