Zach Johnson

This week, we take a closer look at Zach Johnson as we approach the Valero Open down in San Antonio. Johnson, originally born and raised in Iowa, is best known for his accurate driving off the tee and for what had been a very solid short game until this season. Johnson attended Drake University in Des Moines, where he led the team to three NCAA Regional Meets. Johnson tends to be in the value range of players each week, but has also been known to make a run when he picks up a little bit of momentum. In his years on tour, Johnson has won 11 PGA Tour events which also includes winning The Masters back in 2007.

Johnson turned professional in 1998 and played in several low tier tours before making his way onto the PGA Tour full-time in 2004 after leading the Nationwide Tour in money earned in 2003. Johnson won his first PGA Tour event at the 2004 BellSouth Classic and slowly moved up in world rankings over the next two years. His big breakthrough victory came at The Masters in 2007, where he was able to best Tiger Woods, among others, by two strokes to win the prestigious tournament. He became the first golfer to win The Masters ranked outside of the Top 50 in the world. He went on to win the AT&T Classic in May of 2007 to further cement himself as one of the best players in the world.

Johnson, as is our focus in most weeks, has played very well at the Valero Open, the same tournament he will be playing in for the upcoming week. Unfortunately, for us, the current course has only hosted the Valero Open from 2010 up to the present, so Johnson’s victories in 2008 and 2009 can largely be discarded in looking at how he stacks up against the field this weekend. However, the good news is that Johnson did finish in 6th place here last year so we have one very positive result to look at in making a decision on Zach this week.

In taking a look at Johnson’s stats, we have noticed a few areas of concern that have developed as a trend over the last few years. Obviously, as Johnson gets older (currently 39 years of age), his game will slowly fall off as it inevitably will for all players entering the twilight of their career. We are seeing a few areas of concern that are worth noting for Johnson as he approaches that stage. Zach has always been considered one of the better putters on tour and for good reason. The year Johnson won The Masters, he ranked 4th in strokes gained putting. He slipped a bit in this category in 2008, but regained his form in 2009 when he finished 36th. From 2010-2012, he hovered around 10th on tour, before slipping to 45th in 2013. In 2014, he fell further, dipping to 79th on tour. This season, the fall has been even more dramatic as Johnson currently is ranked 148th on tour with a -.197 strokes gained putting. We think this is important to note as many experts simply will say of Johnson that he is going through just a bit of a drought. However, when we pour through the numbers a little deeper, we see a pretty clear trend over the last three seasons starting to form.

Now, we are not suggesting the Zach Johnson is washed up by any means. Clearly, the last round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last weekend showed that when Johnson has his game in gear, he is formidable in any event. However, we do want to take that with a note of caution as we would expect some of the struggles that we’re seeing out of Johnson now to continue through the rest of the season. Even last Sunday’s monster round, where Johnson hit an Albatross on the Par 5 16th hole was dimmed to a degree by the fact that Johnson missed two short putts for par on the 17th and 18th holes to end the day on a bit of a sour note.

Our recommendation for Johnson this season is to use him in a few key tournaments where he has had previous success or when his price dips into the lower ranges giving him additional value as a cut maker for the week with potential upside. While we feel that Johnson’s best golf is probably behind him, we do anticipate that he will be a factor in a handful of tournaments for a few years to come.