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A tribute to one of Iowa’s favorite sons, Zach Johnson 

Zach Johnson will be 46 in February 2022, which is usually the age where PGA Tour wins start becoming more of the exception than the rule. Indeed, Father Time’s tap on the door begins to grow ever louder for golfers over the age of 45 as the titans of yesteryear reconcile themselves with the fact that their best days are, in all likelihood, behind them. 

When professional golfers eventually get to this stage in their lives, they will hope that they can look back on their careers having achieved what they set out to do. For Zach Johnson, he is in the enviable position of having overachieved by getting the most out of his talent. Now, when you consider how much regret plays a part in the lives of professional athletes in terms of getting to the finish line and feeling unfilled, you begin to understand just how much satisfaction Johnson will take when he reflects on his career from his luxurious house in St Simons Island after eventually calling it a day. 

Indeed, despite being one of the shortest hitters on tour for the majority of his career, Johnson has managed to bring the game’s brutes to their knees through sheer hard work and sacrifice. To emphasize just how much Johnson has had to fight against the odds, we can take a look at the PGA Tour’s stats on driving distance for 2021 and we’ll find Johnson at number 170 out of 200 players. In essence, this means that there are 169 tour pros who hit the ball further than Johnson but incredibly, that hasn’t stopped him from winning two majors.

As majors go, you would have to say that they are two of the better ones as well with the 45-year-old winning the Masters in 2007 and the Open in 2015. Johnson’s win at Augusta National 14 years ago was particularly inspiring as the American rewrote the rules in terms of rubbishing the narrative that only the game’s biggest hitters could triumph at the 7,475-yard course. Through sheer consistency and expert wedge play, Johnson meticulously went about his business to record one of the all-time major wins over any era. 

That is Zach Johnson on the course, but the man of it over the duration of his professional career has been just as impressive. Indeed, the Drake University graduate has never forgotten his roots in Iowa and comes back every year to host a golf tournament for his foundation’s event at the Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids, which is just 30 miles north of Iowa City. The event in question is the annual Zach Johnson Foundation Classic and it is designed to give back to the community in Cedar Rapids by raising funds for families in the area. In 2019 the event raised $1.1 million for local families which earned Johnson the honor of winning the Payne Stewart Award

 But before we carry on, a special word on Payne Stewart and why this award is so revered. 

Payne Stewart was a professional golfer on the PGA Tour who tragically died in a plane crash along with five others in 1999 after his private jet lost cabin pressure once they reached cruising altitude whilst en route to Dallas from Orlando. Stewart’s death hit the golfing world incredibly hard given how much he did for charity and how he always strived to put others first despite being one of the game’s greatest talents. Needless to say, the Payne Stewart Award is widely acknowledged as the most prestigious prize on tour today, so the fact that Zach Johnson won it is no small matter. Indeed, Johnson has spent his career paying back the city of Iowa after everything it gave to him and this has earned him this moving recognition.

As touched on earlier in the piece, Johnson can look back on his career with a sense of satisfaction that few will ever experience in their lives. And maybe, just maybe, the 45-year-old has one last hurrah left in him on the golf course still. 

Of course, it would be a long shot when you consider that Johnson is at odds of 200/1 to win the 2022 Masters. Anyone wanting to go through the latest odds for the spring showdown at Augusta National can visit a site that provides a list of the best betting sites. Naturally, everyone wants the best odds available and that is why the experts on this page have scoured the web to compare dozens of betting sites. Indeed, every bookmaker listed on SBO.net offers a jaw-dropping number of betting markets for virtually every sport under the sun which includes the Masters in 2022.  

Basically, once you have a look at where Johnson stands in comparison to the favorite, who is Jon Rahm and priced at 9/1, you’ll soon realize how much of an achievement it would be for Johnson to roll back time and win another green jacket. But then again, this is a man who has made a career of overcoming the odds by quietly accomplishing the incredible, so write him off at your own peril.  

The bottom line is that irrespective of whether Zach Johnson gives us one last thrilling bow on the golf course or not, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever happens, the Iowa native’s breathtaking legacy is already secure.

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