Double major-winning Zack Johnson turned 50 earlier this week and with one of his strong new career goals being returning to Gleneagles to make amends for the humbling events of 12-years ago.
Gleneagles is playing host later this year to the 2026 ISPS Handa Senior Open and for a second occasion in four years after hosting the 2022 tournament when Northern Irishman Darren Clarke became the fourth player in history to win both The Open and Senior Open.
Gleneagles has an enviable track record of hosting elite golf events across its three Championship courses, including the Ryder Cup in 2014 and the Solheim Cup in 2019 and 26 DP World Tour events since 1974.
Zach Johnson looking for a happier return to Gleneagles following the ‘shellaching’ of a dozen years ago. Image Getty
Johnson spoke of his excitement of joining the over-50s competition later next week at Boca Raton in Florida and made a point of singling out returning to Gleneagles for a first time since being a member of the hapless 2014 USA Ryder Cup team humbled by Europe’s Paul McGinley.
McGinley’s men turned on a master class humbling their rivals by five points to make it three European wins in succession but that was overshadowed by Phil Mickleslon’s heated post final round press room criticism of the US captain Tom Watson.
Paul McIlroy and his victorious 2014 European Ryder Cup team. Image Getty
In a possible never before public outburst, Mickelson lambasted Watson over many issues and stressing that the Ryder Cup decisions were all made by Watson and his assistants, Mickelson saying: “Nobody here was in any decision.”
Watson fended off Mickelson’s verbal attack declaring: “It takes 12 players to win. It’s not pods. It’s 12 players”.
Johnson was there with Mickelson and his team-mates at that conference but his lasting memory of the 2014 Ryder Cup is ‘we got shellacked’.
He said: “We got shellacked. We were simply out-played.
“Hunter (Mahan) and I lost our match on day one, and then Matt (Kuchar) and I were out-played in our second day encounter.
“I managed to draw with Victor (Dubuisson) in the Singles but it was all too late. I walked away thinking we just had to play better and simply what it boiled down to.
“It wasn’t that difficult to figure out. It was quite simple actually”.
“So, I’ll be heading back to Gleneagles come July looking to come away a lot more content than I did all of 12-years ago”.
And while Johnson probably has similar views of his 2023 losing USA captaincy campaign in Rome, he looks ahead to this next chapter in his career and hoping good friend Tiger Woods will be fit enough to join him in the over-50s brigade.
Johnson said: “My response to Tiger and golf I think is probably a pretty universal outlook on that: I just want him to play and I want him to play healthy.
“I don’t know what that looks like. Obviously, he’s a friend and I hope that we have not seen remotely the last of him.
“He’s a lot older than me, you know, two months. I don’t know. I hope in some capacity he has the ability to compete. He’s still going to be out here whatever that looks like, certainly helping the PGA Tour with a lot of things internally.
“Hopefully he stands up for the PGA Tour Champions and what that’s all about.
“I’m sure he will, most of his friends are out there, too.
“For me, I’m going to get used to sitting in a cart maybe a little bit. Kind of sounds awesome. Three-day events sound really good”.
