Johnson nearly gets an 18th hole flashback

NEWPORT BEACH ? Mark Johnson may not have hit an 89-yard lob wedge shot for an eagle on the 18th hole during the first round of the Toshiba Classic on Friday ? like he did last year on the final day to win his first-ever pro tournament.

But his performance in round one at the Newport Beach Country Club on Friday stood out enough for Jerry Pate to bow down to Johnson and urge the crowd to cheer Johnson after the 18th hole.

The crowd ? filled with Johnson supporters ? happily obliged.

Johnson, playing with Pate and Tom Kite, shot a three-under-par 68, putting him tied for fifth with 10 other players after one day, just three shots behind leader Bob Eastwood.

“I scrambled pretty well today,” Johnson said. “When I got into trouble, I got out of trouble.”

The 18th hole for Johnson did have similarities to his final hole on the last day a year ago.

For starters, his drive off the tee sailed wide left off the fairway, just like last year.

“I pulled my drive left, then hit a wedge over a tree just to get in position,” Johnson said.

This time, Johnson was about 120 yards from the hole.

Did he have a flashback to last year’s final hole, when his lob wedge shot spun back into the cup?

“Yeah, I did,” Johnson said. “I saw my third shot hit the green and thought it might spin a little and go toward to the hole, but it didn’t.”

Instead, the ball spun away from the hole and left him with a six-foot birdie putt, which he missed. Johnson had to settle for par and three-under for the day, which keeps him in contention.

Johnson, a CIF Southern Section golf champion at Barstow High in 1972, shot a 33 on the front nine and a 35 on the back nine.

Johnson, dubbed “The Beer Man” because he used to drive an Anheuser-Busch truck for H. Olson Distributorship in Barstow, made about a 60-foot birdie putt on the par-3 fourth hole.

Johnson hit a 20-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole to go three-under. Johnson missed a putt for par on the 13th hole and was wide on a 15-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole. But he got back to three-under on the par-5, 492-yard 15th hole by knocking down a 10-foot putt slightly downhill.

In all, he made five birdies in the round.

Throughout the first round, Johnson, 51, said he heard “Beer Man” references from his fans.

“There was a lot of that going on,” Johnson said. “I’m getting a lot of support, it’s awesome.”

So far this year, Johnson’s best finish came in Hualalai, Hawaii, where he tied for 13th place at the MasterCard Championship.

Both Pate and Kite finished with two-over-par 73s. Kite’s score snapped his streak of 15 straight rounds of par or better for the year. Kite won the AT&T; Classic at Valencia last week.

Pate, who served as a color analyst on ABC, CBS and BBC golf broadcasts during the 1990s and had two PGA Tour victories, is coming off a victory at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am last month in Florida.