Zach Johnson Rides Wave of Success Into Playing His First Senior Major

Even before Zach Johnson was chosen captain of the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team, he always had an affinity for the PGA of America.

That makes it even more important for Johnson to play well in his first Senior PGA Championship – which is run by the PGA of America, which also stages the Ryder Cup -- at The Concession Golf Club.

“It means a great deal,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Any time you have this organization, this entity behind a championship, nothing but the utmost of respect and admiration for really the root and foundation of what the organization is about.”

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While Johnson, a two-time major champion, saw his American team lose to the Europeans in 2023, it remains among his major achievements to be given the honor of being named captain by the PGA.

“In my opinion, I think it's pretty clear that the growth, the cultivating, and the fostering of the game starts with the PGA of America and the many, many members that make up its organization,” Johnson said. “Certainly in the United States.

“I'm a product of that. I can think of two individuals off the top of my head that are the ones that I would attribute to fostering the love of the game for me. They are Mike Bender, my swing coach, and then the gentleman that started me in the game, Larry Gladson, who was at the club that my folks joined at a young age, Elmcrest Country Club. They both were and are PGA of America members.”

Johnson won the Masters and the U.S. Open, but he can add a PGA-run major this week if he were to win at The Concession. He is among the favorites.

Johnson last month became the 22nd player to win his inaugural PGA TOUR Champions event when he earned a four-shot victory at the James Hardie Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational in Boca Raton. He finished T3 and T2 in his next two starts before missing the cut at last week’s Masters.

“My game feels fine,” he said. “Always trying to get better, little things here and there. You play Augusta. That obviously magnifies things pretty quick, which I love. Whether you play good or bad, it still magnifies things. Yeah, excited to be here. I mean, I've never played Concession. I played it yesterday for the first time in the pro-am. It's going to require every piece to be on.”

Johnson reached out to his close friends to get intel on playing on the PGA TOUR Champions. But he said it would take him having FootJoys on the ground to really understand the difference between the PGA TOUR.

“It’s kind of two-fold: It's really fun,” he said. “But the biggest one is once you get to the first tee, it's competition, and everybody is still really good. Those are the two common sentiments.”

Defending champion cautious: Like Johnson, defending champion Angel Cabrera also missed the cut at last week’s Masters.

Cabrera knows he’ll have to be on his game to successfully defend his Senior PGA Championship.

“It's a very tough course with the first shot from the tee and the small greens,” Cabrera said. “You have to be very cautious when you're striking to the green.

“The greens are fast, and we have to locate the ball very well, because they have a lot of movement and they are very fast.”

Oldest Senior major: The Senior PGA Championship is the most historic and prestigious major on the PGA TOUR Champions. This is the 86th edition. The first Senior PGA was held at Augusta National in 1936.

Seven World Golf Hall of Famers are in this week’s field: Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Retief Goosen, Bernhard Langer, Colin Montgomerie, José María Olazábal and Vijay Singh.

The field includes 20 major champions, 20 PGA TOUR Champions winners, 68 PGA TOUR winners (for a combined 331 wins). Four of the last six Senior PGA champions are in the field: defending champion Angel Cabrera, 2022 champion Steven Alker, 2021 winner Alex Cejka and 2019 champion Ken Tanigawa. Steve Stricker, 2023 champion, withdrew after recently undergoing hip-replacement surgery.