How Dustin Johnson and a bungling USGA created one of the rowdiest U.S. Opens ever

What is it about the 12th hole at the 2016 major championships? Just months after Jordan Spieth’s stunning collapse at Augusta’s 12th, the U.S. Open bubbled into memorable chaos at the same spot.

It made sense that this is how Dustin Johnson would finally get his first major. It would have been too boring had he just powered his way across Oakmont without controversy towing along on Sunday evening. It’s what makes him so compelling and what has kept him from the kind of major championship résumé commensurate with his talent, which is every bit that of Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth.

After his collapse at the Masters, Spieth’s voice started cracking with emotion as he talked about how cool it was what the fans did for him trying to bring him back into it after that disaster at the 12th hole. Dustin Johnson is not that -- whatever the fans shout rarely makes him move and he’s sure as hell not going to get emotional talking about anything the crowd did for him after a round.

But the USGA and DJ conspired to whip the Sunday evening crowds into the kind of frenzy we rarely get in golf. It was an unforgettable walk to his first major championship, one that just had to include a little rules drama that set off everyone on the grounds, watching at home and on Twitter in the final two hours of what had, prior to that, been a disjointed and lethargic U.S. Open.

For a player possessing some of the greatest power we’ve ever seen in the sport, Johnson has a completely flat-line personality that is so incongruous with his exhilarating game. He never emotes, whether he catches a bad break or drops a bomb of a putt. A hole-in-one might generate a smile and a high-five, but there’s rarely much else. There are no Tiger Woods uppercut fist pumps, Jordan Spieth shouts or Rory McIlroy exhortations to rally the crowd on his side. I wrote on Saturday night that the way he walked, this immeasurably cool glide, is the most entertaining thing about watching him in between so many of those fantastic, jaw-dropping shots. Thank god he launches missiles 350 and 375 yards off the tee or else there might be little else to latch on to.

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Johnson did not need to be the fist-pumping and screaming superstar to have the crowd in hysterics on Sunday. Before DJ ever reached the 12th tee, the spot where this 116th U.S. Open was turned on its head, he was the crowd’s man. There was no Spieth or Tiger or Rory in contention -- DJ was the known name, the super talent loaded with major championship baggage.

So the crowds swelled around him throughout the front 9. Branden Grace would have to step off his ball as fans standing around his tee watched a Johnson approach shot land on the preceding green in distance. More inane stuff comes out of a golf crowd than any over sport, and it flowed as they urged on DJ. They screamed that “Lowry is going to choke” and yelled god knows what about Paulina as he walked down the 8th hole. One uttered “Dustin Johnson is America!” the reasoning being who the hell knows, but the guy sure seemed convinced of it. Then he crossed the player bridge over Interstate 76, the odd public works intrusion that bisects this blue-blood club, and an 18-wheeler just laid on the horn as it whizzed underneath his smooth gait. Even the caddie of his competitor and playing partner, Lee Westwood, went in for the quick bit of encouragement and fist-bumped him after an incredible birdie on the 9th green.

It was at that 9th hole that this really felt like it was starting to happen for Johnson as he eliminated the four-shot deficit to Shane Lowry from the start of the round. He launched one of the trademark drives right down the center. The thing you cannot get on TV, or watching from a grandstand, is the physical energy needed just to walk the length of a Dustin Johnson tee shot. The 9th hole is an uphill par-4 from the highway back to the clubhouse and trudging through the heather and mud to DJ’s shot took something out of you. Westwood hit two shots before we got to DJ’s ball. You’d march with your head down, look up and wonder if you were there yet, and then exhaustedly keep going. It was far from his longest drive, but the uphill walk and the time it took just to get there reinforced just how different a talent DJ is in a way you don’t get on TV even with the instant measurements and sexy ProTracer images.

When he finally did take his second shot, he dropped it right on top of the pin and the crowd erupted. The birdie putt went in and they screamed all around him. None of this, of course, changed anything about DJ’s expression. He looked like the emoji as he walked off the green and got the fist bump from Westwood’s caddie, who seemed more excited about the birdie than the guy in the lead at the U.S. Open. Aside from when he was making a golf swing, the most dramatic movements he made while chasing down Lowry on the front 9 were to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and occasionally lift his arm for the most cursory wave if the crowd got really loud as he walked up to a tee.

The crowd, caddies and bypassing Interstate traffic had coalesced around Johnson. And then the USGA stepped in just after 6 p.m. to help shoot the entire thing into a different orbit. The USGA officials approaching the 12th tee ignited a moment of panic that became two hours of chaotic confusion and anger. In golf, the crowd can get behind a singular guy out on the course but there’s rarely a villain to root against. The USGA provided that on Sunday, adding an element of anger and someone to root against in the coalescing of support for Dustin.

The atmosphere in the first couple holes after the 12th tee visit was one of shock. There was this unified groan across the place as yet more rules trouble crept in to potentially derail the first major championship of a player who should have several. DJ seemed a little off too, missing the quality birdie chance that the par-5 12th provides and making bogey at the 14th.

Then the shock turned to anger. Fans checked their phones, saw the tweets from the faces of the game filleting the governing body of the game. It turns out Rory and Jordan would have a role in some wild Sunday night drama at the U.S. Open. So the crowd turned and DJ and Westwood might have been the only group out there, playing alone against the USGA. Over the final hour, everywhere Dustin Johnson walked, the crowds started chanting “D-J, D-J, D-J” and “U-S-A, U-S-A” while mixing in jeers for the host organization. As if he were court=side at a Warriors-Cavs game, one fan yelled “What’s the call ref!?! What’s the call, ref!?” at a gaggle of walking USGA officials as they bounded off the 16th tee. Others booed. There was confusion all across the property but who they were for and against was as clear and intense as you’ll get on a golf course.

As the others fell around him on the leaderboard, Johnson held on at 4-under ... or maybe 3-under depending on whether the USGA decided to reverse the initial ruling at the 5th hole that he had not committed a penalty when his ball moved a millimeter. DJ is one of the few super talents in golf who would blithely keep walking while everyone else around him was losing it over how he’d been treated. After the crowd calmed down around the 18th tee, he put his tee in the ground and ripped it 303 yards right down the middle.

While Johnson never showed any outward frustration or anger about the controversy and confusion he dragged with him since the 12th, what came next was a symbolic middle finger to the organization that was about to give him his first major championship trophy. Standing in the middle of the 18th fairway, Johnson took aim from 191 yards away. He delivered one of the greatest shots in the history of the national championship and the already frenzied crowd responded with a roar that shook the ground and the grandstands on it.

The prior year at Chambers Bay when DJ gave away the U.S. Open, the crowd let out this unforgettable collective yelp that was one part incredulous pain and one part happy that Jordan Spieth had just won. The eruptive sound after that laser right into the pin was just as unforgettable.

He would make the birdie putt that, in effect, would be wiped out moments later when the USGA did, really, actually, go ahead and assess the one-shot penalty. By their own bungling incompetence, the USGA inadvertently left us with one of the most memorable crowds and final hours ever. It was not relevant for the result -- DJ was still the champion -- but, in a way, it changed the entire slog of a week. We got the high-powered, super-talent winner on a Sunday evening finish that we’ll never forget.