MURRELLS INLET | Dustin Johnson hasn’t looked back.
The Coastal Carolina University alumnus and former Myrtle Beach resident was among the first high-profile players to join the fledgling LIV Golf League when he signed and resigned his PGA Tour membership in June 2022.
Though a lot of international travel is required, LIV has just a 14-tournament schedule from February through August and events are 54 holes over three days rather than 72 holes over four days on the PGA Tour.
The shorter schedule allows Johnson to spend more time with his wife Paulina Gretzky and sons Tatum and River, ages 10 and 7.
“It’s been really nice. LIV is going really well. My life is going good,” said Johnson, 40, on Thursday at TPC Myrtle Beach. “It’s nice for me being at home for a longer period of time. I get to coach baseball, I coach my kid’s basketball team. So I get to spend a lot more time at home and do things I wasn’t ablte to do before. So for me it’s been great.”
Johnson was back on the Grand Strand to kick off the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship, which is being played Friday to Sunday and held a practice round Thursday.
At the time of his switch to LIV, Johnson was a recent world No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking with 24 PGA Tour victories and a pair of major championships.
He had a lot of incentive to leave the PGA Tour. His LIV contract was widely reported as being at least $125 million and up to $150 million, and in 2022 alone Johnson reportedly made $36 million in LIV prize money and bonuses, which is nearly half of his $75.5 million in earnings on the PGA Tour from 2008-22.
Johnson has top-two finishes in all four majors, with wins in the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club and 2020 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, and runner-up finishes in the 2019 and 2020 PGA Championships and 2011 British Open.
Since joining LIV, Johnson is without a top-five in majors and has a pair of top-10s – a tie for sixth in the 2022 British Open at St. Andrews shortly after leaving the PGA Tour, and tie for 10th in the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club.
In his past five majors, he’s missed three cuts and has a pair of finishes outside the top 30.
Johnson said he still has the same competitive drive for golf as he did prior to leaving the PGA Tour.
“Right now I’m really focused and working really hard to try to get the game in good form, especially since I’ve got Augusta coming up and I leave on Saturday to go to Hong Kong and Singapore [for LIV events],” Johnson said. “So I’ve got a big stretch coming up here in the next three or four months, so I’ll be working really hard on the game and hopefully just try to put myself in position to contend every single week.”
Johnson has three LIV Golf wins – one in each year of membership entering 2025 – and won the points/money list title in 2022. He finished 14th in the individual standings in 2024, and in the first two events this season in Saudi Arabia and Australia he’s finished 31st and 44th out of 54 players in each.
“I got off to a good start last year and then kind of didn’t play very well throughout the rest of the year,” Johnson said. “But this year I feel like the game’s in really good form and hopefully I can contend in all the tournaments from here on out.”
LIV Golf also has a team competition, and Johnson has had more success as captain of the 4 Aces GC team, winning the regular season team competition in both 2022 and 2023 and reaching the finals of the season-ending team championship last year. 4 Aces won four straight events in 2022.
The 4 Aces team in 2025 is comprised of Johnson, Patrick Reed, Harold Varner III and Thomas Pieters.
A world-class junior event
It was an unusual scene Thursday at TPC Myrtle Beach when a pair of noteworthy participants played their practice rounds.
Tiger Woods’ 15-year-old son Charlie was expected to draw the most attention at the tournament.
But there was a heavy police presence at the course because of another entrant. Kai Trump, the 17-year-old granddaughter of President Donald Trump and daughter of Donald Trump Jr., played her practice round with what appeared to be secret service agents following her throughout.
The tournament, being presented by LA Golf, features 60 of the top boys and 30 of the top girls ages 13-18 from around the globe. The first DJ Junior was held in 2016.
“I’m very proud of it. I think it’s gone better than I expected,” said Johnson, who has a golf school at TPC Myrtle Beach headed by his former coach at CCU, Allen Terrell. “I think we’re one of the top-ranked junior tournaments in the country and we have one of the strongest fields. All of the kids I talk to, they all love playing here and the team here that puts on the tournament does a great job.”
The field includes Tyler Watts of Huntsville, Alabama, who is in the top five in the American Junior Golf Association’s rankings and finished third last year at the TPC.
Watts was invited to stay an extra day last year to compete in “The Q at Myrtle Beach” qualifier for the PGA Tour’s Myrtle Beach Classic and finished third in that event as well.
Entrants Mason Howell of Thomasville, Georgia, and Asher Vargas of Spring, Texas, are also in the AJGA top 10. Howell, a Georgia commitment, tied for ninth in last year’s DJ Junior while Vargas, a North Carolina commitment, was a runner-up in the 2024 Boy’s Junior PGA Championship. Will Hartman of Marvin, N.C., a Vanderbilt commitment, is among the top-ranked juniors in the Carolinas.
The girls field features Madison Messimer of Myrtle Beach, a Tennessee commitment who is a consensus top-five girls recruit in the Class of 2025. She was on the victorious 2024 U.S. Junior Solheim Cup Team and is competing in her third DJ Junior, with finishes of 12th and third in the past two.
Her competition includes Elizabeth Rudisill of Charlotte, N.C., who is ranked fourth in the AJGA girls rankings, 12th-ranked Amelie Zalsman of St. Petersburg, Florida, who tied for seventh in last year’s DJ Junior, and Ryleigh Knaub of Debary, Florida, who won the 2023 DJ Junior and was a runner-up last year.
“It’s exciting to see how much this event has grown and the quality of players we have playing. Each year it seems to get stronger and stronger,” Johnson said. “It’s exciting to be a part of it and exciting to come here.
“. . . It’s always great to come back to Myrtle. I don’t get to come back as much as I’d like to, but obviously with kids and still golfing myself, you just don’t have a whole lot of time.”
A cut will be made following the second round, with the top 36 boys and ties, and top 18 girls and ties, advancing to Sunday’s final round.
The tournament doesn’t have defending champions this year, as 2024 boys winner Ethan Paschal is competing for the University of North Carolina and girls winner Vanessa Borovilos is playing for Texas A&M.
Paschal was the first boys winner who wasn’t ranked No. 1 in the world by Junior Golf Scoreboard in the past four years, as then No. 1s Jackson Koivun (2023), Ben James (2022) and Dunlap (2021) won the past three.
Johnson said the tournament is maxed out for the number of participants, so it’s unlikely to grow beyond its current format. The only way to do it, he said, would be to separate the event into two events featuring girls in one and boys in the other.
“There’s really not much else we can do other than that,” he said. “The field is really strong and we’re at the maximum players we can host right now.”
The tournament is open to spectators free of charge with parking and shuttles nearby at the Inlet Square Mall.
Live scoring and tee times are available on the tournament website.
