Off-season planning pays off right away for Johnson

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Badz/PGA TOUR

Zach Johnson couldn't hide his smile as caddie Damon Green performed a victory dance on the final green Sunday.

HONOLULU -- He's headed back to a house in Sea Island, Ga., that he has only lived in for about seven days.

But Zach Johnson -- or more likely, his wife, Kim -- will have plenty of money for decorating after he picked up the fifth PGA TOUR victory of his career at the Sony Open in Hawaii on Sunday.

Inside the Numbers

Johnson's Final Stats

Category Total Rank Eagles 2 T2 Birdies 18 T5 Pars 45 T51 Bogeys 7 T55 Double Bogeys 0 N/A Other 0 N/A Driving Accuracy 69.6% T3 Driving Distance 289.3 yds. 27 Greens in Regulation 72.2% T12 Putts per Round 28.0 T13 Putts per GIR 1.673 T5 Sand Saves 50.0% T39

Johnson's two-stroke win over David Toms and Adam Scott made him $972,000 richer and gave him the lead in the all-important FedExCup standings. Geoff Ogilvy, who won last week's Mercedes-Benz Championship is 53 points behind.

"It was far from easy, especially knowing, well, one, who I was playing with (Toms), and two, the other guys on the board," Johnson said. "So I'm very pleased with this win."

Johnson, who tied for sixth at Kapalua, is 30 under over his last six rounds and the only player to post top-10s in each of the first two events of the 2009 season. The win is his second in six starts dating back to the Valero Texas Open -- and was further proof the man who once seemed to win only in Georgia has expanded his horizons.

More importantly, though, it proved something to Johnson, has now won a tournament each of the last three years. He's hardly in the Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer range -- they went 17 straight with at least one win -- but ranks among the TOUR's most solid performers.

"I feel very fortunate to get a W at any point in time, and obviously this one is sweet, the sweetest one I've had, because it's right now," Johnson said. "I think this game is getting harder and harder as far as the talent and just makes me want to work harder.

"I'm playing golf for a living, so it's my job and I'm going to treat my job as any other job. I'm going to make it hard and I'm going to work hard at it and I'm going to practice."

"I don't know where it puts me," he added. "I just know that my game is going the right way, and you know, I'm excited about the future."

That said, the 2007 Masters champ isn't exactly sure when he will leave that new home and return to competition. Johnson is definitely playing the Northern Trust Open and the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Whether he will enter one of the four events before Los Angeles remains to be seen. When he comes back, though, Johnson will be confident because he is comfortable with his game and the new Titleist irons that have responded so well.

"Just knowing that what I did in the off-season and how we more or less sat down and put a direction down for 2009 and seeing it pay off this week, it's pretty awesome," Johnson said. "If anything, I've got to put this behind me and focus on my next tee shot, whenever that week is.

"However, I do want to resort back to some of these feelings and some of these thoughts, these confident thoughts, these peaceful thoughts that I have on the course so that I can continue a good rhythm."

Johnson is a competitor in the Corey Pavin mode -- a small of stature, gritty, never-give-up type of player who can hold his own against the big bombers. The Drake grad proudly calls himself an overachiever, and he seems to find a way to win.

"I don't know if that's what sets me apart at times, but competition is what drives me," he said. "So it doesn't really matter what it is; I want to win."

If someone had told Johnson while he was playing the Prairie Tour and struggling to find his way on the Nationwide Tour that he would have a major and four other PGA TOUR victories before his 32nd birthday, his response would have been one of disbelief.

"'What are you on?' probably," Johnson suggested with a smile. "1998, I was very raw. Always a pretty decent putter, but I never was very consistent with any part of my game. You know, if someone would have said that ... there's no way I would have believed them."

Johnson and his instructor, Mike Bender, have crafted a consistent swing, and his caddy, Damon Green is one of the best on TOUR. The men who sponsored him early in his career became a "business family" and Johnson is never one to forget his roots.

"The team that I assembled, even way back when, and the team that's been assembled now, that's the reason why I'm sitting here," Johnson said. "I could not have done it myself. Given that, I'm proud of what I've done. I'm certainly encouraged that I've got the right system and I've got the right people, and 2009 looks great.

"It's the second event of the year, but you know, it's not going to be easy. Top-10s are hard out here. That's what keeps me motivated."

Johnson may live in Sea Island now, but his success is always keenly felt back home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was instrumental in raising funds for flood relief last summer, and his win -- coupled with the quarterback Kurt Warner and the Arizona Cardinals' trip to the Super Bowl -- is sure to lift some spirits.

'Kurt and I went to the same school, he's four years older than me and he's a fantastic guy," Johnson said. "I think Cedar Rapids is happy right now. That area has gone through a lot over the last year, and just having something that they can cling onto that's positive is awesome, because it's not good now and it's not going to be good tomorrow, it's not going to be good for a long time.

"But they are good people and that's certainly what makes that community. I'm very happy for Kurt and certainly the Cardinals. I guess it's a good day for Iowa."