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The result: more fairways, more greens. Johnson's game improved immediately. He won the final three tournaments of the 2001 Hooters Tour season, carding a 66 or better in eight of those 12 rounds.
"That's when I knew he had a special gift," Bender says.
Bender was also struck by Johnson's discipline, his ability to recognize what shots he could and couldn't execute. Look no further than last year's Masters, where Johnson laid up on each of the four par-5s in all four rounds, resulting in 11 birdies.
Says Pickens, the psychologist: "A lot of guys don't know their games well enough to stick to a plan like that. That's what separates Zach."
In 2003, Johnson took Player of the Year honors on the Nationwide Tour, and a year later became just the second PGA Tour rookie to pocket $2 million, thanks in part to his win at the BellSouth Classic, his 13th Tour start. Still, nobody paid much attention to the unassuming Iowan, not even when he made seven birdies in his four-ball victory with Scott Verplank at the 2006 Ryder Cup, one of the few highlights for the woeful U.S. side.
"There was pressure on every shot," Johnson recalls. "That proved I could do some really good stuff on large stages."
Cue the 2007 Masters. With 18 holes to play, and with Stuart Appleby, Tiger Woods and Justin Rose ahead of him, "Zach Who?" was mere scoreboard filler to casual golf fans. But then, dramatically, his stars aligned: Cold air on the weekend had made the fairways firmer (a boon to shorter hitters) and the greens faster (how Johnson likes them); Johnson played with his close friend Vaughn Taylor, a comforting presence; and Woods made just one birdie.
It also happened to be Easter. Irrelevant? Not to Johnson, a devout Christian. "I think God had a plan for me," he says, "and I was just following it."
Of course, there was one other thing: Johnson played magnificently, wedging the course into submission and posting a 69 on a day when the scoring average exceeded 74.
"Everybody was amazed by how calm he was, but that's just kind of the guy he is," says Steele, Johnson's college buddy, who watched the telecast from his Kansas home, "physically ill" from the tension.
Also watching, in Cedar Rapids, was Sharon Cook, a waitress at Moose McDuffy's. "Golf for me is like watching grass grow," Cook says. "But my girlfriend said, 'Sit down and watch. We're not going anywhere.' Everybody was really stoked."
For good reason. Johnson was Iowa's first major champion since Jack Fleck won the 1955 U.S. Open, and he is intensely loyal to his roots. Though now a Florida resident, Johnson is announced at Tour events as hailing from Cedar Rapids. His charity, Birdies That Care, has raised $400,000 for area nonprofit organizations. And his primary sponsor, the financial services company Aegon, is based in Cedar Rapids.
All of which has understandably delighted the locals. As Mike Hlas, a sportswriter for the town paper, The Gazette, wrote in the wake of Johnson's Masters win: "We Iowans like the validation when one of us hits it big and tells the world he comes from a good place."
