25 years after Tiger's romp, a huge fan, Chase Johnson, is US Open's only player of Black heritage

Toronto Star

2 days ago

OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — One of the first memories for the last man to make the field at this year's U.S. Open was watching Tiger Woods.
In that respect, Chase Johnson has plenty of company. In another, he has none.
On the 25-year anniversary of Woods' historic dismantling of Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open — a milestone win that some thought might puncture golf's stereotype as a sport for rich, white men — Johnson is the only player of Black heritage in the 156-man field at Oakmont.
That's hardly the only valid storyline for the 29-year-old former standout at Kent State who:
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—Adopted a cross-hand chipping style to avoid the shanks.
—Beat players like Max Homa and Rickie Fowler in qualifying to earn an alternate's spot that eventually got him in the field.
—Made a whirlwind trip from qualifying in Ohio to the U.S. Open in Pennsylvania with detours to Arizona for a tournament, then to Michigan to celebrate his fiancee's birthday.
But neither does Johnson shirk from his position at the national championship this week.
He is the 2025 season points leader on the Advocates Professional Golf Association, a nonprofit tour that promotes diversity in golf. He landed there after short stints on the Korn Ferry Tour. He also plays on the developmental PGA Tour Americas circuit.
A quarter-century after Woods made history, Johnson is not trying to be the next Tiger, only trying to show what can happen for a young player with a good work ethic and a love of the game.
'We're going to keep on working on it, but hopefully I can continue to build my platform and build that platform for other players to just continue to grow the game,' Johnson said.
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Diversity has been a work in progress for golf for ages — one that took on new meaning when Woods burst on the scene with his Masters win in 1997, then backed it up in 1999-2000 with four straight major victories, including the 12-shot win at Pebble Beach.
Two years ago, when not a single Black player qualified for the U.S. Open at the Los Angeles Country Club, USGA president Fred Perpall, who is Black, said it was a disappointment and he found it hard not to wish 'we could just press the magic wand' to make those numbers look better.
On the eve of the first round at Oakmont, with Perpall's term coming to an end, he and CEO Mike Whan touted some encouraging signs: Of the 24 million Americans who said in a recent survey that they're 'extremely interested' in playing golf, 24% are Black and Hispanic. Perpall said the USGA's 2-year-old U.S. National Development Program will be the pathway for America's elite for the next 100 years.
'It's not going to be a fast road,' Perpall said of the effort to make golf more diverse. 'I mean, we didn't get here overnight. We will not get out of here overnight. But if you get down to the junior level and you get down to the elite junior level, I think you're going to see a lot more diverse game than you see out there' at country clubs and at Oakmont this week.
Johnson's path was literally inspired by Woods. He recalls watching the 15-time major champion not as one of his first golf memories, but one of his first memories of anything.
In the Woods video game Johnson played as a kid, the game gave 'trophy balls' as prizes. Johnson's father, Mel, gave out 'Daddy Trophy Balls' as rewards to motivate his kid.
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Like Woods, Johnson is mixed race. His father his Black and his mother, Cheryl, is white. The entire family, along with fiancee, Katie Howarth, will be on hand for either two or four rounds this week.
'I was a little shocked with my dad's response' upon finding out he had qualified, Johnson said. 'He was like: 'This is amazing. It's Father's Day weekend. I couldn't ask for anything more.' I was like, 'I think we could think of one thing by Sunday that we could get for you.''
Nothing wrong with dreaming big.
But in the game he's playing, a victory might also look like a couple of young kids seeing someone who looks like them playing at the U.S. Open — then picking up a club themselves.
'I want to see what he does with this platform,' Johnson's coach, Kyle VanHise, said in a 2023 profile in Golf Digest. 'The amount of people he's going to help and influence will be incredible. Who is the one kid that, because he met you, his life was changed forever?'
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