ATLANTA – Five days later, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm are still going at it. They dressed about the same Friday in the Tour Championship, matched birdies on five holes and wound up tied for the lead at East Lake Golf Club.
That required Rahm getting the better of Johnson again.
Rahm, whose 65-foot birdie putt beat Johnson in a playoff Sunday to win the BMW Championship, shot a 5-under-par 65 that allowed him to negate the two-shot advantage at the start of the round that was awarded to Johnson as the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup standings.
Johnson did his part with a 67, losing a three-shot edge early with back-to-back bogeys to end the front nine, then missing a birdie putt from just more than feet on the final hole that would have given him the lead in the opening round of the final event of the PGA Tour’s 2019-20 season.
“The only birdie we didn’t share was mine on 16. Besides that, we birdied every single hole together, which is kind of unique, right?” Rahm said.