No player has ever won a PGA Tour event the week before the U.S. Open and the Open itself. A lot is made of this every single year, especially when the guy who wins the tournament before the Open is a contender. In this case, the tournament before the Open was the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, and the winner was a familiar face on major Sunday, Dustin Johnson.
Unsurprisingly, someone mentioned this to Johnson after his win in Memphis. His response was as predictable as the question itself.
"I wasn't worried about the Open today," Johnson said with a smile. "I was worried about winning the FedEx. Next is a whole different week."
Major or not, back-to-back wins on the PGA Tour are rare. Tiger Woods was the last man to pull it off, in 2009. Vijay Singh accomplished the feat in 2008. The last time someone not named Woods, Singh or Phil Mickelson pulled it off was in 2003, when Ernie Els won the first two events of the PGA Tour season.
The reason that no one has ever won the tournament before and the Open itself is because winning back-to-back tournaments in an individual sport with hundreds of high-level competitors that is usually based on cumulative score, and not match play... is honestly really hard. The likes of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, even when completely healthy and on top of their games, need lucky bounces and still never have a five percent chance to win any given tournament.
Johnson wasn't worried about the Open on Sunday because there was no reason for him to be worried about the Open on Sunday. There's nothing about winning the week before the Open that makes a golfer less likely to win the following week. Johnson's entering the U.S. Open playing very good golf. How does that give him a smaller chance of winning the U.S. Open than not playing good golf entering the tournament?
For all your news and updates in the run up to the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic, visit SB Nation's dedicated golf hub. Be sure to head over to USOpen.com for even more coverage from the event.
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