2015 WGC-Cadillac Championship results: What we learned from Dustin Johnson's win at Doral

The first WGC event of the PGA Tour season is in the books, and Dustin Johnson emerged from a leaderboard that was loaded all weekend with international stars. Here are some things we learned this week at the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.

1. Dustin Johnson is coming

It didn't take long for Johnson to jump right back into the PGA Tour and start winning again after a six-month personal leave of absence (or suspension based on who you ask). Johnson was one of the few players to break 70 on Sunday and he pulled off a five-shot chasedown of 54-hole leader J.B. Holmes. This was just DJ's fifth event back, and the win now extends his streak to eight straight seasons on Tour with a victory. He's also now got as many wins as Rory McIlroy. After losing in a playoff at Riviera, Johnson bested the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Rankings, who were all in attendance at the same event for the first time since the 2012 PGA Championship. This wasn't a major win but he beat an elite field on a course that was major-championship difficult.

We've long known that Johnson is one of the most naturally talented and gifted players in the world. But for whatever reason -- his own mismanagement, bad breaks, nervy play -- he's given away multiple chances to win multiple majors. It's trite and cloying to use words like "redemption" or "refocused" when discussing DJ's instant success in his return from that leave, which included the birth of his first child and an engagement to Paulina Gretzky.

Those personal story narratives will no doubt be pounded into the ground over the next 24 hours. Hopefully that six-month leave or suspension or whatever it was kicked him in the ass and cleaned out whatever was holding him back. He was already extremely successful and talented, any improvement around the margins should mean that DJ is coming for a major this year.

2. The redesigned Doral really pisses people off

Donald Trump is probably grinning at all the angry and frustrated players panning his course. Course architect Gil Hanse may be more unsettled. Following four days of pretty treacherous golf, the re-made Blue Monster took a lot of heat from players and media afterwards on Twitter. Keegan Bradley criticized the design of the 18th hole, which is almost impossible to birdie, on Saturday night.

Do people like watching tour players lay up on par 4s?

— Keegan Bradley (@Keegan_Bradley) March 7, 2015

Bradley was just one of several world-class players in the field questioning the course. Johnny Miller repeatedly called one pin position on Sunday "unfair." But no one lit into the course more than Brandt Snedeker's caddie, who destroyed everything on his way out of town.

The worst golf course I've ever caddied on. #TruthHurts

— sv (@thescottvail) March 8, 2015

Goodbye Dump International..what a terrible golf course!! #Bombersdelight

— sv (@thescottvail) March 8, 2015

@K9Koda the entire course is awful, unfair and a bombers delight. Not one good hole on the golf course. #mickeymouse

— sv (@thescottvail) March 8, 2015

That is some fire rarely targeted for a non-major PGA Tour venue.

I wrote about the ups and downs of water ball golf last week after the early rounds of the Honda Classic became a bore as ball after ball plunged into the many hazards. Doral became a little ridiculous when balls that landed in the middle of the green trundled off and into the water, as Holmes found out on Friday with this unfair sequence. There was certainly an element of that this week and the water golf again became some typical Florida swing banality.

wow 4x as many balls in the water on 18 than there have been birdies. #TheBlueMonster

— Amanda Balionis (@Amanda_Balionis) March 8, 2015

While the unending water balls and penalty strokes can get annoying, the more pointed critique of the course might be that it's only set up for one kind of golfer to succeed. It wasn't a coincidence that Holmes, Johnson and Bubba Watson were the three players primarily fighting it out down the stretch. They're well-known for their absurd length off the tee and they bombed away again this week. That they were the ones in contention late Sunday was not lost on the rest of the field.

The longest 3 in the field are position 1,2 and if you hadn't guessed 3rd. Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahhaahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahha

— Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) March 8, 2015

You need to have a course where multiple styles of play can succeed, and that didn't seem to be the case this week.

Trump thought Rory McIlroy chucking his club into the water was "wonderful" so it's unlikely we see many changes that make the course any easier. If anything, he may try to make it harder. Only the Masters and the U.S. Open played more difficult last year. But that's not necessarily a good thing or what we want to see at a WGC event with the top 50 players in the world all in attendance.

3. Rory has work to do before Augusta

Well that changed quickly. It was hard to see any scenario that didn't involve McIlroy steamrolling into the Masters as the prohibitive favorite with multiple wins already earned. Regardless of what happens between now and the season's first major, Rory should stay the favorite. But his game, which looked impenetrable just a month ago after two dominant starts on the Euro Tour in the Middle East, has shown some holes over the last two weeks in South Florida.

Caddie to Rory on 18: "I think we left our game in the desert." Or in the water. Up next: Augusta later this week, Bay Hill next.

— Brian Wacker (@pgatour_brianw) March 8, 2015

Rory started his PGA Tour season with a lost ball off the tee and a double bogey at the Honda Classic. That was the beginning of a short two-day stay at PGA National last week. Then at Doral he couldn't break 40 on his first nine, depositing several balls in the water. It came to a head on Friday when he badly yanked a 3-iron into a lake at the 8th and then his club followed into the drink.

That toss will probably be the only thing most people remember from this tournament, but it encapsulates the frustrating turn in his game. On Sunday, he put two more in the water at the 18th and faked another club throw before chipping in to finish his week with another double bogey.

Unlike Tiger Woods, Rory's schedule is a little less predictable. We have a sense of where he'll play, but he doesn't always lock in those non-major prep tournaments. We know he's going to make his first appearance ever at Arnold Palmer's Invitational at Bay Hill in two weeks. So that will be at least one more pre-Masters start to shake off whatever has happened so far on the Florida swing.

Despite this spotty two-week stretch, Rory is still the top talent in the game and by a significant margin. However, the enthusiasm as we roll toward Augusta is tamped down a bit.

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We're off to Tampa for the Valspar Championship, the "weak link" of the Florida swing. Here are the final results from the WGC-Cadillac Championship:

Place	Player	Score	1st Round	2nd Round	3rd Round	4th Round	Payout
1	Dustin Johnson	-9	68	73	69	69	$1,570,000
2	J.B. Holmes	-8	62	73	70	75	$930,000
3	Bubba Watson	-7	71	69	70	71	$540,000
T4	Adam Scott	-4	70	68	75	71	$365,000
T4	Henrik Stenson	-4	69	71	72	72	$365,000
6	Louis Oosthuizen	-3	71	74	67	73	$270,000
T7	Webb Simpson	-2	74	69	70	73	$215,000
T7	Bill Haas	-2	74	73	65	74	$215,000
T9	Kevin Na	-1	74	71	71	71	$163,333
T9	Rory McIlroy	-1	73	70	72	72	$163,333
T9	Ryan Moore	-1	66	71	74	76	$163,333
T12	Danny Willett	E	73	76	71	68	$123,000
T12	Jim Furyk	E	70	73	76	69	$123,000
T12	Rickie Fowler	E	68	77	71	72	$123,000
T12	Ryan Palmer	E	71	70	74	73	$123,000
T12	Lee Westwood	E	71	72	70	75	$123,000
T17	Jordan Spieth	1	75	69	73	72	$97,500
T17	Marc Warren	1	73	75	69	72	$97,500
T17	Brandt Snedeker	1	74	73	70	72	$97,500
T17	Brooks Koepka	1	69	74	73	73	$97,500
T17	Morgan Hoffmann	1	73	71	71	74	$97,500
T17	Shane Lowry	1	71	74	70	74	$97,500
T23	Gary Woodland	2	70	74	76	70	$83,000
T23	Hideki Matsuyama	2	76	72	72	70	$83,000
T23	Thomas Aiken	2	78	69	72	71	$83,000
T23	Matt Kuchar	2	73	75	70	72	$83,000
T23	Ross Fisher	2	78	71	69	72	$83,000
T23	Brendon Todd	2	72	73	72	73	$83,000
T23	Mikko Ilonen	2	78	72	67	73	$83,000
T23	Patrick Reed	2	71	73	71	75	$83,000
T31	Jason Day	3	76	74	70	71	$72,000
T31	Bernd Wiesberger	3	74	74	71	72	$72,000
T31	Phil Mickelson	3	74	74	71	72	$72,000
T31	Martin Kaymer	3	71	76	71	73	$72,000
T31	John Senden	3	73	70	74	74	$72,000
T31	Jimmy Walker	3	71	76	70	74	$72,000
T31	Sergio Garcia	3	73	69	71	78	$72,000
T38	Marcel Siem	4	78	72	75	67	$65,500
T38	Keegan Bradley	4	73	74	75	70	$65,500
T38	Alexander Levy	4	68	73	79	72	$65,500
T38	Paul Casey	4	75	73	72	72	$65,500
T38	Cameron Tringale	4	73	74	72	73	$65,500
T38	Charley Hoffman	4	70	74	72	76	$65,500
T44	Jamie Donaldson	5	70	72	76	75	$61,500
T44	Charl Schwartzel	5	71	72	75	75	$61,500
T46	Billy Horschel	6	72	75	75	72	$59,000
T46	Joost Luiten	6	79	69	73	73	$59,000
T46	Sang-Moon Bae	6	75	71	73	75	$59,000
T49	Ian Poulter	7	74	78	71	72	$55,000
T49	Zach Johnson	7	76	73	73	73	$55,000
T49	Luke Donald	7	72	76	74	73	$55,000
T49	Greg Chalmers	7	77	72	73	73	$55,000
T49	Jason Dufner	7	79	71	71	74	$55,000
54	Branden Grace	8	75	74	72	75	$52,000
55	Justin Rose	9	73	74	73	77	$51,000
T56	Chris Kirk	10	76	77	73	72	$48,000
T56	Alexander Noren	10	73	77	74	74	$48,000
T56	Robert Streb	10	72	80	72	74	$48,000
T56	Graeme McDowell	10	73	73	75	77	$48,000
T56	Russell Henley	10	74	74	72	78	$48,000
61	Geoff Ogilvy	11	74	76	74	75	$45,500
T62	Steven Jeffress	12	75	74	78	73	$44,750
T62	David Lipsky	12	74	73	76	77	$44,750
T62	Victor Dubuisson	12	72	73	70	85	$44,750
65	Hunter Mahan	14	75	79	74	74	$44,250
T66	Stephen Gallacher	15	84	72	78	69	$43,875
T66	Danie van Tonder	15	74	74	75	80	$43,875
68	Koumei Oda	16	74	78	73	79	$43,500
69	Thongchai Jaidee	17	80	73	76	76	$43,250
70	Gary Stal	18	75	79	77	75	$43,000
T71	Anirban Lahiri	19	80	76	74	77	$42,625
T71	Tommy Fleetwood	19	77	77	73	80	$42,625
73	Hiroyuki Fujita	27	75	83	78	79	$42,250