If golf is all about responding to disappointment, then Julia Johnson has been playing golf. The Ole Miss junior and 72nd-ranked amateur in the world narrowly missed out on the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019. But after an ultra-steady 2019 — 11 top-25 finishes and five top-10s, including a six-stroke win in Mexico — Johnson easily qualified for the 2020 ANWA as one of America’s top 30 amateurs. Now, Johnson finds herself in a spring that’s gone from busy to busier: helping Ole Miss prepare to defend 2019’s SEC championship, and readying for one of the biggest tournaments in women’s amateur golf on a course she’s watched all her life.
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LYING FOUR: Did you get to watch the ANWA last year?
JULIA JOHNSON: I don’t like to admit this, but I actually didn’t watch it. I was really on the brink. I thought that I should’ve gotten into it with my ranking, so I was a little — I don’t know, I was a little upset about it. I didn’t watch it; I thought it would hurt a little too much to watch it. But I’ve watched replays of it since then.
LYING FOUR: How does that feel then, after coming so close last year, to get in this time around?
JULIA JOHNSON: It feels really good. I didn’t really have my eye on it that much until our second-to-last tournament of the fall. I kind of started to look at rankings and paying attention to where my WAGR was at. It was definitely a goal coming out of that tournament: I wanted to prove that I was worthy of playing in that golf tournament, because I felt like I was last year. To play well enough this past season and earn my way into it felt really, really good.
LYING FOUR: So how did you get the invitation? What’s the story behind that?
JULIA JOHNSON: Oh my gosh, the story is horrible.
LYING FOUR: [laughs]
JULIA JOHNSON: I was traveling in Florida. I take lessons from Jordan Dempsey down at TPC Sawgrass, so I was traveling down there, and I knew that they were starting to come in. I’d seen a couple of my friends post theirs, and it was going to my mom’s house, so I kept going, “Check the mail every day! Check it, check it!” My sister ended up opening it; I made her drive to my mom’s, and she got it. It was kind of sad, because I wanted to open it myself, but she sent me a picture and I remember just being beyond excited about it. You dream of getting that letter from the Board of Governors, so it’s a really special moment. I still haven’t seen it, so I’m trying to get my parents to ship it to me because I want to touch it and see it. They want to frame it, and I said, “No, I want to touch it first and see it with my own eyes, and then we can frame it.” It’s super-cool. The honor in itself is really, really cool.
LYING FOUR: It’s bizarre that that’s your story, because Kaitlyn Papp from Texas had almost the exact same story last year: she was practicing, and her sister called her and told her that the invitation had arrived.
JULIA JOHNSON: That time of year, right before school starts, you don’t really know where you’re gonna be. So you have the option of sending it to your apartment, or college, or whatever you do — or your parents’ house. And I thought, “Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna be in Oxford.” I have a P.O. Box, but I didn’t want to take any risks. So I kind of new that it was gonna get sent to my mom’s and that I wasn’t going to be able to see it, but I wanted it to be in a safe spot. I’m excited to see it. Hopefully I’ll see it soon, at some point.
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LYING FOUR: Have you been to Augusta National before?
JULIA JOHNSON: I’ve never been. My dad and my mom both have been. My mom has actually been the past two years for the Masters, but I’ve never been. Something has always fallen that week. We’re in season now in college, and in high school I always had state or something, so I couldn’t go. I told myself, “When I get out of college, I want to go.” But I ended up getting to go while I’m in college, which is pretty cool. Just to get there and be there — I’m really looking forward to being there and seeing the aura of what Augusta National is.
LYING FOUR: Are there any spots on the golf course that you’re particularly looking forward to seeing?
JULIA JOHNSON: I’m excited to get to play No. 12, Golden Bell. I think it’s a really good test of your golf smarts: do you go for pins that you probably shouldn’t go for? We’ve seen it happen a thousand times in the final round: those guys hit it in the water on that par-3, but I really pride myself in being a smart player. And I think if you can play Augusta National smart — you take the right risks and do the right thing — you can really be rewarded for that. There are a couple of par-5s that you can reach in two, and that could be extremely fun. It’s different, because I’ve always watched the men play it — my dad used to have the ‘97 Masters and the ‘01 Masters on tape recording, and I used to watch Tiger when I was younger. So I know Augusta National in my mind, but I don’t necessarily know it from our tees in my mind. Some holes, like 18, I’m really excited to play because to see what the girls can do from our tees on a hole like that is gonna be really fun.
LYING FOUR: It’s interesting that 2019 wound up being the first year for this tournament, because there was so much discussion all year long about the need for greater equality between men and women’s golf, and the ANWA was an interesting part of that conversation. What are your thoughts on where the women’s game is right now versus where the men’s game is, and how close the playing field is to being level?
JULIA JOHNSON: I think with the hype around Tiger coming back, you have people who aren’t even true golf fans who tune into golf just to watch him. And that’s similar to what you had in the early 2000s; he’s almost rejuvenated the game for the men. And I think you see right now, in my wave and with the girls who are a few years older than me, you have a ton of Americans coming out on tour. You have Kristen Gillman, Kupcho — even Maria Fassi, who’s from Mexico — there’s a young wave of golf right now. And I think the men’s side has experienced that for the past few years, and those young guys — JT, Jordan — they’ve kind of lit up the game on that side. So for us, we have these college girls coming out — just really good players that are my friends, that I tune in and watch. So I think you’re gonna see the women’s game trend upward, with this tournament, and with a lot of good, young players coming in whose careers you’re gonna want to follow. I don’t know if we’re at a place where we’re level yet, because there are such big names in the men’s game, but I definitely think we’re trending in the right direction — especially with the Nelly Kordas and the Jessica Kordas, girls like that who you really want to watch. I feel like we’re definitely on the right track.
LYING FOUR: Do you have any favorite players that you keep track of, either women or men?
JULIA JOHNSON: I’ve been a Tiger Woods fans since I was probably two years old. There’s videos of me watching him when I was four — in the car, on my way to tournaments, I used to have this three-disc set of his life, and I had it all memorized. I’ve been a Tiger fan through thick and thin. I’m a huge, diehard Tiger Woods fan. On the women’s side, as I’ve gotten older — Angela Stanford actually practices with us a good bit. She has a couple of rental properties here in Oxford, so she’ll come practice with us at Ole Miss. Just to be around her — she’s a really nice person. It was fun watching her win the Evian two years ago. She’s just a really nice person. And like I said, the young golfers — Lauren Stephenson, Kristen, I got to play against girls like that. So it’s fun to watch them and see how they’re doing.
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LYING FOUR: How would you describe your game?
JULIA JOHNSON: I would describe it as extremely smart. I like to understand golf courses; I like to kind of play them the right way and take risks when I need to, but I’m not going to go crazy and take risks when I don’t need to. I play golf courses the right way. I like to understand them and get birdies where I need to. I have a really strong short game — chipping is a really strong part of my game. Just smart: make the putts, make the six-footers for birdie, and just finagle your way around the golf course. I’m an endurance player. I’m typically not gonna beat you on 18 holes — I just shot 61, and that was the first time in my life where I beat a field on 18 holes. But I’m more of an endurance golfer: if you give me three or four rounds, I’ll shoot two-under, two-under, and four-under, and wear you down a little bit. It’s fun right now. I think my game is trending upward, too. I’ve seen a lot of good progress lately, and I’ve seen a lot of things that make me excited about the future: my distance has been going up, and other good stuff like that.
LYING FOUR: You had such a good junior career — and I don’t know if it felt like this — but looking at your results, it really doesn’t look like you missed a beat going from junior golf to college golf. What would you say was the toughest thing about transitioning from junior golf to college golf?
JULIA JOHNSON: I had a hard time, initially, with the time management portion of it. You have this freedom all of a sudden, and you have the ability to stay up until 1 o’clock in the morning, if you want to. And then you have workouts at 5:30 the next morning. So just maturing, I think, is the biggest part of the transition. Because a lot of it is really in your hands now: you don’t have your parents telling you what to do. To mature as a player is really cool, and to see yourself do it over a few years — I’ve watched my game get better through maturity, and that’s been really cool. The lack of sleep that I had freshman year wasn’t good for me, and so I had to commit to getting eight hours of sleep each night. I think that’s the big part of college: it just prepares you for adult life, because you learn how to manage yourself and take care of yourself.
LYING FOUR: When you’ve got a big tournament like the ANWA on the horizon, how do you prepare? Do you research the course? Do you start practicing shots that you know you’ll need? Or do you just sort of roll up and peg it?
JULIA JOHNSON: We have the best coaches in the world, and they do a really great job before tournaments. They really understand what type of greens we’re putting on, what type of grass we’re chipping on. At our facility, we have bent, Bermuda, zoysia — we have everything you could ever play on. If you know that you’re playing a lot of turtleback greens, then you practice things like that to prepare you. We have unbelievably good facilities so that we’re able to do that. We actually have the 16th green at Augusta mimicked on our short-game course.
LYING FOUR: Well that’s perfect.
JULIA JOHNSON: Having things like that, you just have to be smart about how you’re playing. You don’t need to practice bump and runs if you’re playing on turtleback greens. It’s just being smart and understanding, knowing the game of golf, and knowing what shots you need to hit. I don’t try to make tournaments bigger than they are. You still have to go out there and play 36 or 54 holes. It’s still the same as any other tournament. If you overhype it and make it bigger than it is, then it puts a little bit more pressure on than you should feel. Obviously, it’s an honor, and it’s a huge tournament. But you take the same mentality and the same process into it, in my opinion.
LYING FOUR: So, last question — who’s gonna caddie for you at the ANWA?
JULIA JOHNSON: I actually have a phone call tonight with a guy out there named Grey Moore. He’s caddied in a few Masters, and he’s one of their top guys out there. So I’m talking with him tonight on the phone. It went back and forth for a while between one of my coaches or one of them; they actually just changed a rule so that it doesn’t count against your NCAA hours, so I went back again and thought, “Should I get one of them to caddie for me?” But I think we’re just gonna try to hire someone who really understands both Champions and Augusta, and is really knowledgeable about the courses — just trying to make this a professional thing. I need to give it my all, and part of that is hiring a caddie who really knows those courses. I’m excited to talk to him tonight. So hopefully I’ll have someone by the end of the night — or if not, by the end of the week.
LYING FOUR: I read a story about a bunch of people who went out last year thinking that they’d just get their dads to caddie for them, and then after one practice round, they realized that Dad was worthless and hired local caddies. So I think you’re making the right call.
JULIA JOHNSON: Yeah, my dad caddied for me when I’ve played the North-South at Pinehurst No. 2 the past few years, and sometimes you just need a little bit of professionalism out there. Sometimes your dad can be too close to you, and there’ll be a little bit of bickering back and forth. I mean, just those greens — it’s hard to understand those greens in one practice round, so you need people out there who have seen them for years and years. So I’m excited to get someone who really understands both courses.
Editor’s note: Johnson hired Grey Moore to caddie for her at the ANWA.
All photos: credit Ole Miss Athletics.
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