So Dustin Johnson has a little problem with recreational drug use. Weed, cocaine and a propensity to party hard at times, apparently with a wife or wives of a couple of his peers..
For me that is hardly new news for the lives of the rich and famous, is it ? DJ has ton's of cash and toys, until recently he was single until Paulina showed up. He had been having one of his best years, with one win at the WGC HSBC Championships and two runner ups among seven top 10s, while ranking third on the money list ($4.2 million) and he is regarded one of most talented players in the world.
Hollywood, the music industry etal are awash with stories every day that fuel our reality TV channels. If he weren't a member of the squeaky clean PGA Tour I'd be filing this story with the likes of Courtney Love, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Justin Beiber.. they are the company Johnson is in with this story.
The difference is he is a member of the PGA Tour, and that's what is raising eyebrows.
His leave of absence, announced by the 30-year-old on Thursday, coincides with a six-month suspension by the PGA Tour, as first reported by Golf.com on Friday, for a failed drug test for cocaine earlier this year. According to the report, it was the third strike for Johnson, ranked 16th in the world and an eight-time winner. He tested positive for marijuana in 2009 and cocaine in 2012, when he served a previous suspension, unannounced by the PGA Tour, which has the option to keep private any breaches of its recreational drug policy, and they issued a statement again yesterday denying they had suspended him.
The Tour’s policy of releasing no information on failed recreational drug tests or resulting penalties essentially allows a player and his advisors to characterize an absence as they see fit and that's why Johnson's agent said he had hurt his back lifting a jet ski in 2012 when he was in fact serving a 3 month suspension.
He is said to have had two affairs with wives of PGA Tour players, including one that allegedly broke up the marriage of one Tour player. Twitter was abuzz yesterday with details of the bust-up, with the purported ex-wife of the player saying that she and her husband were separated when the alleged tryst occurred.
Whatever the truth in all of this, it is a messy embarrassment for the PGA Tour, one Johnson saw coming and that's why he took the high road.
However as Tiger showed the world all to recently, if big DJ comes clean, gets help he has the chance to come back and be accepted with open arms by the golfing public, his peers and the PGA Tour, no matter how embarrassing it is at the moment..
Bryan Angus
(notes from AP CP pgatour.com, BBC, Reuters)
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