Dustin Johnson is the best golfer in the world, and he looks like it at the U.S. Open

Two years after he won the U.S. Open at Oakmont, Dustin Johnson entered this year’s national championship at Shinnecock Hills as the No. 1 player in the world. In heading to the clubhouse with a three-shot lead at 4 under after his second round on Friday, Johnson looked the part.

In his Thursday round, Johnson was great, but not for the reasons you’d expect. He’s one of the world’s longest players off the tee, and that helped on a 7,416-yard track. But even though he averaged 322 yards off the tee (11th-best in the 156-man field), Johnson hit just nine of 18 greens in regulation. He wasn’t amazing on his approach shots. He kept his score low in two ways. The simplest: by holing out from a bunker on the par-4 eighth hole:

(“Probably should have never been there,” Johnson said later. He flubbed a short 60-degree wedge into the bunker when he could’ve just flown the green and putted out.)

And he was brilliant on the green all day. Johnson took 26 putts. Two players took fewer, at 25. It was Johnson’s short game that made the huge hitter stand apart on a long course.

On Friday, Johnson was even better all around. He dealt with early rain and made just one bogey against four birdies, including one at the difficult par-3 11th hole.

Johnson’s reputation as a masher precedes him, but he’s a solidly above-average short player, too. He’s 51st out of 205 PGA TOUR players this season in strokes gained around the green and 20th in strokes gained just from putting. But he still hits the hell out of the ball. His average driving distance on the tour this year is 311 yards, the 10th-longest figure. It jumped to 322 on Thursday at a course that gave him room to run the ball.

More than anything, Johnson’s day was a case-study in steadiness. In a group with Tiger Woods (and Justin Thomas), Johnson kept his cool in a circus atmosphere even as he found time to enjoy his moment. He laughed on the greens a couple of times with his playing partners and high-fived his way through the human tunnels that guided him from greens to tees. Johnson keeps an almost solemn demeanor when he plays, but the guy who showed up for the first day of the tournament looked like he knew exactly how good he was.

The course just pounded some of the world’s best players on Thursday, but it didn’t beat Johnson. The world No. 1 demonstrated in his win two years ago at Oakmont that he can handle a course with lightning greens and heavy rough, though the fescue at Shinnecock is unlike anything that comes into regular play at the site of his 2016 championship.

That’s Johnson’s only major win to date, but he gave himself a chance at Pinehurst in 2014 and Chambers Bay in 2015, when a doomed trip to the 18th green on Sunday gave Jordan Spieth the title. Maybe Johnson just really likes to play punishing courses; he had a miserable time and missed the cut at ultra-friendly Erin Hills in this event last year. (He’d just had a child and got to Wisconsin later in the week than most players.)

There wasn’t a lot of public whining about the course’s layout, but Johnson seemed to embrace the challenge with wider arms than his competition.

“I felt like it was fair,” he told reporters. “You know, it was hard, but it was fair. It wasn’t anything tricky or, you know, unreasonable by any means.”

He won in Memphis last weekend at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, a tournament he ended with a walk-off hole-out from 170 yards. Johnson is a bit hard on himself despite having two wins and no missed cuts in his 11 starts this year, but he gave himself a break after Thursday.

“Obviously, coming off a win, you’ve got a lot of confidence. I feel like I’ve been playing really solid all year, just haven’t really been getting a lot out of my rounds,” he said. “I felt like, you know, last year, I did play well and, you know, scored well. That’s what I did today. I feel like I scored really well.”