"Chunked my bunker shot and then chunked the next one. Skulled the next one," he said. "Everything that you could do wrong, I did wrong."

That eight on the 2nd hole on was as bad as it gets. The four-under-par he shot over the next 16 holes was a reason he could smile at least a little.

Even with the snowman, Johnson shot an even-par 70 and finished the day at six-under, leaving him four back of solo leader Rickie Fowler.

"I just tried to focus on, there were a lot of holes left," Johnson said. "You just don't try to push it. You know this course is tough, but if you can drive it in the fairway, be aggressive when you can, you can have some shots at birdie."

Johnson made five of them, to be exact to be back on track for a shot at winning a second U.S Open title and his third major.

Johnson is one of those players who might be known as much for what he hasn't won as what he has. His close calls have included ugly numbers and ugly episodes.

"Chunked my bunker shot and then chunked the next one. Skulled the next one. Everything that you could do wrong, I did wrong." – Dustin Johnson.

In the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, it was grounding his club in a bunker he didn't know was a bunker on the 72nd hole that cost him a spot in a play-off.

Months earlier in the U.S Open at Pebble Beach, he came into the final round with a three-shot lead, only to watch it sail into the Pacific with a triple bogey on 2 and a double on 3.

His three-putt from 12 feet at Chambers Bay on the 72nd hole cost him the U.S Open title in 2015.

He won the U.. Open the following year at Oakmont, then added his second major at the Masters in 2020.

That this crooked number from Johnson came on a Friday, not a Sunday, was good news simply because there's plenty of time to make it up. If he ends up falling a shot or two short, though, he'll remember one hole.

It started when he pulled his tee shot on the 497-yard 2nd, leaving it in a bunker on the left side. He had an uphill lie there and didn't make clean contact, leaving himself a 100-yard shot out of deep rough, over the barranca and onto the green.

He made poor contact there and hit it into the junk. His drop for shot No.5 was into a clean lie in the fairway, but Johnson caught it thin, and the ball landed in tangled rough behind the green.

One chip and two putts later, he had gone from six-under to two under before the fightback began.