ESPN Golf

Zach Johnson is from Iowa. Really. Born in Iowa City, raised in Cedar Rapids. A Hawkeye through and through.

But you can excuse him if he now has a special affinity for the state of Georgia. Johnson earned his first career PGA Tour win at the previously named BellSouth Classic in 2004, then claimed his first major championship at the Masters last month.

His encore? A third victory in the Peach State, taking the AT&T Classic title on Sunday.

So, what does the future hold for Johnson? The Weekly 18 begins by exploring that very question.

It's been a common question ever since he won last month's Masters and one that should gain even more momentum following his victory at the AT&T Classic on Sunday. What should we expect from Zach Johnson in the future?

Let's establish a response by first distinguishing what we shouldn't expect from Johnson. First off, his most recent triumph proved that he's not going to fade into one-hit wonder oblivion. He's not going slip into the realm of the mediocre like Shaun Micheel, won't struggle to contend again like Paul Lawrie, won't fall from grace like Todd Hamilton.

Then again, Johnson isn't going to be Tiger Woods, either. He's not even going to be a main rival for Woods, won't be an elite player on the Phil Mickelson or Vijay Singh level throughout his career, though he has shown he can certainly hang with the big boys on any given weekend. In fact, Johnson joined that triumvirate of top dogs as the only guys with multiple PGA Tour wins so far this season.

So, what should we expect from Johnson? Well, exactly what he's been doing. He'll be a guy who hits a lot of fairways and greens and makes his fair share of putts. He'll play solid, consistent golf on a week-in, week-out basis. He'll contend for titles every so often and, as we've seen, he has the killer instinct to win when he does.

As for the long haul, Johnson may never be a top-five player, but he'll sneak into the top 10 on the World Ranking at times and never fall below 20th or so. He'll make plenty of Ryder and Presidents Cup teams. He may even win another major or two in the next decade. Think of him as a younger version of David Toms, a bulldog competitor who's never going to blow anyone away with prodigious length off the tee, but can methodically hang around leaderboards throughout any given weekend.

Not that Johnson will get caught up in what others think of his future prospects.

"I'm not a firm believer in expectations," Johnson said after Sunday's win. "You get caught up in expecting to do this or expecting to do that, things go astray. Paramount is the fact that it doesn't matter where you play. You're talking world golf rankings here, numbers. That's really insignificant."

Insignificant? Maybe. But everyone will still be talking about it.

Johnson may have won the AT&T, but the two most clutch shots of the final round came from Ryuji Imada, one of two co-leaders (along with Troy Matteson) entering Sunday. On 17, he hit a low 9-iron out of a bunker from 171 yards to within 7 feet, only to miss the ensuing birdie putt. Needing birdie to force a playoff on the final hole, his chip from behind the tricky 18th green bounced and rolled to within a foot. Of course, the magic could only last so long. On the first hole of the sudden death playoff, Imada hit 3-wood from the left rough and saw it draw too far left, landing in the adjacent water hazard guarding the hole.

Imada and Troy Matteson were paired together for the final two rounds, renewing a rivalry they developed in college, where the former was a University of Georgia Bulldog and the latter was a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket. "It was fun to hear the 'Go Dawgs' and the 'Go Yellow Jackets' all day," Matteson said after the third round. "It's just great when you can involve people like that." Imada backed those comments. "It was fun to see people pulling for me as a Georgia Bulldog and Troy [as a] Yellow Jacket," he said. "It was a lot of fun, people yelling and chanting."

What is it with the recent run of double-eagles on the PGA Tour? Last week, Hunter Mahan and Peter Lonard found the bottom of the cup with their second shots on par-5 holes in back-to-back rounds, the first two albatross scores in Players Championship history. On Sunday, Stewart Cink added one of his own, knocking in a hybrid shot from 242 yards on the sixth hole. There have now been five double-eagles on tour this year.

Poor Bob Estes and J.J. Henry. The two players both aced the par-3 133-yard 11th hole at TPC-Sugarloaf on Friday, but if they tuned in to SportsCenter's Top 10 Plays later that night they would have seen the No. 1-ranked play was a hole-in-one … by Champions Tour player Jim Nelford. Despite not getting any love from the Top 10 staff, Estes and Henry became the first players on tour to ace the same hole on the same day since Justin Leonard and Jesper Parnevik did the deed during the second round of last year's Players Championship.

Congrats to Chris Tidland, whose T-6 finish at the AT&T this week literally came out of nowhere. In six previous starts this year, Tidland had only a 75th-place result at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and five MCs to show for his efforts. The Q-school grad is near the bottom of most statistical categories, including greens in regulation, putting average and scoring average.

Big comeback week for Olin Browne, who had missed a good chunk of the season due to a right hand injury. Browne competed in his first event of 2007 at last week's Players, shooting 81-75 to miss the cut by seven strokes, but finished strong at the AT&T with a final-round bogey-free 66 that gave him a T-9 result. In 399 career PGA Tour starts, he now owns 25 top-10 finishes.

3-3-3-3-3-2-3. It may sound like the fake phone number you received from that cute girl, but in reality those are Michael Putnam's scores over a seven-hole stretch during Friday's second round at the AT&T. Playing the back nine first, Putnam made birdie on the par-4 15th hole, then followed with par on the par-3 16th, birdie on the par-4 17th, eagle on the par-5 18th, birdie on the par-4 first, birdie on the par-3 second and, finally, birdie on the par-4 third en route to a 6-under 66. The streak tied a tournament record (held by Carl Pettersson and Jonathan Byrd) for consecutive holes with a score of 3 or less.

Pretty good run for ex-U.S. Amateur champs lately, as Mickelson (1990 winner), Woods (1994-95-96) and Scott Verplank (1984) accounted for the last three PGA Tour victories entering the AT&T. The streak ended at TPC-Sugarloaf, but not without another former Am champion giving it his best shot. Matt Kuchar, who won the event in 1997, was in contention throughout the weekend, before finishing in a share of third place.

Meanwhile, another more recent winner of the U.S. Amateur is tearing things up on the Nationwide Tour. 2003 Am champion Nick Flanagan became the first two-time winner on the minor league circuit this year by capturing the BMW Charity Pro-Am title on Sunday. In defeating Nicholas Thompson by one stroke, Flanagan jumped to the top of the money list and sealed his PGA Tour card for 2008. One more victory will give the 22-year-old Aussie an in-season promotion to the big leagues.

Paul Claxton shot a final-round 2-over 74 at the BMW, dropping him from T-20 entering the day to a share of 43rd when it was all said and done. For his troubles, Claxton earned $2,484, leaving him just $6,327 from becoming the first player to earn $1 million on the Nationwide Tour career money list.

The continuing saga of Ted Potter lives on. Two weeks ago in this space, we brought you the tale of Potter, who missed the cut in all 24 starts on the Nationwide Tour two years ago. After finishing T-12 in the first event of this season, he missed the cut in his next six starts, but finally broke through for another weekend finish at the BMW. Potter shot 70-72-67-74 to finish T-43 for the week.

It's been almost four full years since an American has won the U.S. Open, with Geoff Ogilvy (Australia), Michael Campbell (New Zealand) and Retief Goosen (South Africa) taking the last three since Jim Furyk's triumph at Olympia Fields in 2003. May seem like a long time, but it's nothing compared with the national championships of some other countries, which haven't seen a native winner in much longer. Cross one of those tournaments off the list, though, as Padraig Harrington became the first countryman to win the Irish Open since John O'Leary in 1982. "I have always said the Irish Open is like a fifth major for me," Harrington said. "To win it, well, I'm just ecstatic."

It's been a wild and crazy 14 months for the Hartford-based Travelers Championship. The former Buick Championship and erstwhile Greater Hartford Open was past the verge of extinction in March of last year, but an opening in the PGA Tour schedule not only allowed for its return, it gave the event a visible and desirable date in which to secure a topflight field. Here's the proof: Though the tournament is still a month away, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Zach Johnson are among those who have already committed for the week after the U.S. Open. "Between the elevated purse this year and the new practice facility next year, this tournament has really done a lot to make this a great experience for all the players," said Harrington, who is also among early entrants. "It will be my first time at this tournament, and I anticipate a great event."

Lorena Ochoa reached No. 1 on the Women's World Ranking a few weeks ago and now she has a win to show for it. Ochoa successfully defended her title at the Sybase Classic for her initial victory since taking over the top spot from Annika Sorenstam. "It was a great day," said Ochoa, who won by three strokes over Sarah Lee. "It's always good to get that first win with your name being up there No. 1."

Watch out, Michelle Wie. Though the youngster earned the nickname Big Wiesy a few years ago as an homage to her effortless Ernie Els-like swing, another teenaged girl may deserve the nickname even more. Ashleigh Simon is a South African who has played the Ernie Els Tour in her homeland and won the AJGA's Rolex Tournament of Champions last year. Now she's playing for pay. Last Saturday, one day after her 18th birthday, Simon announced she would turn professional and has already been entered into the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship later this year. "I have thoroughly enjoyed my amateur career and feel I am absolutely ready for the next stage of my golfing journey," she said. "I have been fortunate enough to have already experienced the professional environment so I know it is a place where I feel comfortable and I feel I have learned a lot from the tournaments I have played so far."

Auburn and South Carolina won't face each other during the 2007 college football regular season, but the Gamecocks have gotten the best of the Tigers already. On Thursday, ol' ball coach Steve Spurrier bested Auburn's Tommy Tuberville, 6 and 4, in the Charity Challenge by Wyndham Vacation Ownership, part of the charity pro-am for the Champions Tour's Regions Charity Classic. And just in case you were wondering, according to GHIN.com, Spurrier's current handicap index is 4.6 while Tuberville's is 6.8.

"I'm a Bulldog, but I'm a Drake [University] Bulldog and I guess, you know, the Georgia Bulldogs, we're just splitting time here, so it's good."
-- Zach Johnson, just before going to a playoff with former University of Georgia player Ryuji Imada

Jason Sobel is ESPN.com's golf editor. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com