Johnson, O’Hair shaking off rust from layoffs

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By Eric Page | Tuesday, July 8, 2008 6:05 PM CDT | () comments

SILVIS, Ill. — Zach Johnson and Sean O’Hair sang the same song Tuesday after finishing their practice rounds at TPC Deere Run.

They’re both coming off an injury.

They’re both shaking off rust.

They’re both hoping this week will be the week things start to click as they enter the stretch run of the PGA Tour season.

Johnson, the Iowa native and 2007 Masters champion, is making his first start since missing the cut at the U.S. Open last month. He injured his left wrist June 17 while doing some routine drills leading up to the Travelers Championship and only last week was cleared to start swinging again.

O’Hair, who picked up his first Tour victory here in 2005, is continuing the comeback he started last week at AT&T National. The 25-year-old was forced to withdraw from the Open after bruising his ribs in a car accident June 5 near his West Chester, Pa., home.

“Pulling out of a major championship is like pulling a tooth,” said O’Hair, who in consecutive weeks earlier this year grabbed his second career win at the PODS Championship and finished tied for third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“If I could have hit my driver 220 yards, I would have played. But I couldn’t even hit it 150. I don’t think that would have been very good for that layout.”

Last week, with no help from his short game, O’Hair returned to the course and tied for 75th at Congressional, shooting 5-over 215 before missing the secondary cut Saturday. The JDC will be the second of six straight events for him, continuing next week with the British Open and on through the PGA Championship on Aug. 7-10.

Johnson, who shot plus-8 in two rounds at the U.S. Open, has not been able to recapture the magic that carried him through 2007, a year in which he fought off Tiger Woods on Sunday at the Masters and finished the season seventh on the Tour’s money list.

Even before the injury, while he’d made 12 of 15 cuts, he had only one top-10 finish — tied for ninth at the World Golf Championships — and ranked 108th on the money list.

The JDC, a tournament for which Johnson serves on the board and one so close to his hometown of Cedar Rapids, is a place he’d very much like to turn things around.

“I’ve been playing good. I just haven’t been scoring,” Johnson said. “So maybe this is a way to adjust.

“The state of my game is rusty. I can’t lie about that. … At the same time, my expectations are minimal, if anything. I don’t even have any expectations. Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.