Featured Group: Watney, Kuchar, Johnson

text size

At each PGA TOUR event this season, a featured pairing will be highlighted prior to the first round. Here is the featured group for Thursday and Friday at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

The 2011 season had been a solid one for Dustin Johnson. But after he won twice last year and had a legitimate chance to win two majors, many expected more.

RELATED

FEC Tracker
Tee times
Notable groups
Expert picks
Bubble Busters
Power Rankings
Fantasy Insider
Play Matchups

Johnson took a big step in living up to those expectations on Saturday when he won the rain-shortened Barclays -- and took the lead in the FedExCup in the process.

The 27-year-old South Carolinian will play with the man he beat at Plainfield Country Club, Matt Kuchar, and the previous FedExCup No. 1, Nick Watney, during the first two rounds of the Deutsche Bank Championship. Their tee times are 8:10 a.m. off No. 10 on Thursday and 12:40 p.m. off No. 1 on Friday.

With his win in the first event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, Johnson jumped 18 spots to No. 1 and now leads Matt Kuchar by 784 points and Watney by 1,435. Kuchar started the week ranked No. 12 and is the highest-ranked player in the FedExCup without a win.

And Johnson is no stranger to Playoffs success, either, after winning last year's BMW Championship at Cog Hill and finishing fifth in the FedExCup overall.

Johnson got the 2011 Playoffs off to a rousing start, too, as he and Kuchar embarked on a spirited duel last Saturday while Hurricane Irene bore down on New Jersey. Kuchar started the final round with a one-stroke lead, which Johnson quickly erased with birdies on his first two holes.

Johnson went on to shoot a sizzling 29 on the front nine to Kuchar's more than respectable 31 and the game was on. Kuchar evened the match briefly with a birdie at the 11th hole before handing the upper hand back to Johnson with bogeys on the next two holes.

Johnson parred in under decidedly overcast skies to seal the victory and turn his season around.

"I was never concerned," Johnson said of his dearth of victories in 2011. "More frustrated than anything because I felt like I played some really good golf this year. Just have not been able to quite get it done. And it wasn't that my golf game was bad.

"Just the putts I needed to make, I just had not been able to make them and this week I felt like I didn't do anything crazy with the putter. I just made the ones I was supposed to."

Some of that "really good golf" came at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship where he took a two-stroke lead over Watney, Kuchar and Luke Donald into the final round at TPC Blue Monster.

Johnson and Watney were tied for the lead through 15 holes. But Johnson pulled his drive into the left fairway bunker at No. 16 and ended up making bogey as Watney picked up the victory.

For Watney, the win was his first of two in 2011. Kuchar went on to finish fifth at Doral, one of nine top-10 finishes to date in another extremely consistent season for the Georgia Tech product.

Statistical comparison

Key stats from Watney, Stricker, Simpson from the 2011 season (TOUR rank in parentheses)

Category WATNEY KUCHAR JOHNSON   Driving distance 300.3 (21st) 285.9 (136th) 312.3 (4th) Driving accuracy 58.9% (124th) 65.0% (48th) 57.1% (146th) Greens in regulation 67.6% (30th) 67.7% (29th) 68.8% (16th) Strokes gained - putting .746 (2nd) .417 (31st) -.278 (155th) Scoring average 69.3 (3rd) 69.4 (5th) 70.16 (27th)

Career at The Barclays

Nick Watney Matt Kuchar Dustin Johnson Appearance 8th 8th 3rd Cuts Made/Missed 2/5 5/3 2/0 Wins 0 0 0 Top-10s 0 0 1 Top 25s 0 3 1 Best Finish T33 (2010) T11 (2010) T4 (2009) Last Appearance/Finish 2010/T11 2010/T3 2010/T57 Scoring Avg. 71.17 69.67 69.00

EXPERT PREDICTIONS: We asked some of our PGATOUR.COM experts to predict which player will fare best this week at TPC Boston:

Stan Awtrey: Kuchar. What a great group. Kuchar's consistency, his ability to remain focused, and his craving for a victory could be the difference this week.

Craig Dolch: Johnson. Nick Watney has improved since missing his first five cuts at TPC Boston but Dustin Johnson is loaded with confidence after last week's victory at The Barclays. His length gives him a two-shot daily advantage over most of the rest of the field.

Melanie Hauser: Watney. Dustin is still coming down off last week's win. Kuchar is still spinning from Dustin's buzzsaw. Watney doesn't have a great record here, but a T10 last week has him trending upward. Time is now.

FANTASY INSIDER: PGATOUR.COM fantasy columnist Rob Bolton is bullish on all three members of this week's Featured Group, ranking each of them inside the top four in his Power Rankings for the Deutsche Bank Championship. Watney tops the list with Johnson landing at No. 3 and Kuchar in fourth.