By Joel Beall
Dustin Johnson recaptured the World No. 1 ranking on Sunday night thanks to his blowout win at TPC Boston. It is the sixth time Johnson, 36, as claimed golf’s OWGR crown, and the first since May 2019, when Brooks Koepka usurped his throne at the PGA Championship at Bethpage.

“It’s something that I’m very proud of, to be No. 1 in the world, and I’d like to stay there for a little while,” Johnson said. “It’s been jumping around a bunch here the last few months, but the last time I was No. 1, I think I stayed there for quite some time, and that’s another goal of mine—to see how long I can stay at No. 1.”

But if 2020 has been any indicator, Johnson won’t stay at the top very long.

Johnson became the fifth player to reach No. 1 this year, joining Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm. That is the most players to hold the No. 1 ranking in a calendar year since the OWGR system was installed in 1986.

It is also the fourth time the ranking has switched hands in the past five weeks; Rahm took over for McIlroy on July 18, holding it for two weeks until Thomas grabbed it with a win in Memphis, only for Rahm to claim in the very next week at the PGA, followed by DJ jumping in Sunday night.

This will be Johnson’s 92nd career week as the No. 1 player in golf. Only Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, McIlroy, and Nick Falso have longer cumulative reigns, with Woods holding the record at 683 weeks.

The post DJ becomes record fifth different player to reach World No. 1 in 2020 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
Justin Thomas won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational with a final-round 65 and with it returned to No. 1 in the world.

Thomas worked his way back to the top spot in golf by capitalising on a strong iron game that saw him rank first in strokes gained/tee-to-green and second in strokes gained/approach-the-green, picking up more than 7.5 strokes on the field with the latter. On Sunday, Thomas made six birdies, four of them coming after approach shots that came to rest inside of 10 feet.

Thomas’ iron set is comprised of Titleist’s 620 MB irons (that replaced the 718 MB’s he had been using) that he uses for his 5-through 9-iron in a split set with the company’s T100 4-iron. The grips are Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet. Thomas’ steady play led to just six bogeys for the week against 19 birdies, with only one bogey in three of the rounds.

Although Thomas was not among the leaders in driving distance (ranked T-44), he did manage to hit over 70 percent of his fairways for the week, primarily using his 9.5-degree Titleist TS3 with a Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft or his TS3 3-wood. Thomas worked with Titleist’s tour team this week on tightening the dispersion in his 3-wood, resulting in a shaft change to Mitsubishi’s Tensei Blue AV Raw 85 from the Tensei Blue CK 80 he had been playing.

What Justin Thomas had in the bag at the WGC-FedEx Invitational:

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
Driver: Titleist TS3 (Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60TX), 9.5 degrees
3-wood: Titleist TS3, 15 degrees
5-wood: Titleist 915 Fd, 18 degrees
Irons (4): Titleist T100; (5-9): Titleist 620 MB; (PW): Titleist Vokey SM7
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM7 (52 degrees); Titleist Vokey SM8 (57, 60 degrees).
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist X5

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