Dustin Johnson has swapped hard-core drinking for intense television dramas.
The bad-boy golfer spoke for the first since he left the PGA Tour under suspicious circumstances at the end of July. The 30-year-old continues to deny the report he was suspended by the tour for a third failed drug test, and instead insists he is serving a self-inflicted suspension.
“I did not have a problem,” Johnson told Golf.com in an exclusive interview.
“It’s just something I’m not going to get into. I have issues. But that’s not the issue.”
Johnson suggested his issues were closer to binge drinking.
“I don’t miss waking up with a hangover, and I didn’t drink very often,” Johnson told the website. “It was just when I did it was a little too much.”
Since his break from professional golf, Johnson says, he has eliminated that part of his life and has cut some negative influences from his inner circle.
Johnson also announced through his management company Tuesday that he and fiancée Paulina Gretzky had a boy Monday morning. Johnson said mother and baby are healthy but did not release the child’s name.
Recently, Johnson has spent his days on the course playing with a group of five to 10 people, including Paulina’s famous parents — Wayne and Janet Gretzky. Johnson will return to the course Feb. 5 at Torrey Pines or the following week at Pebble Beach.
“Maybe he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin before,” Janet Gretzky said. “Maybe he felt a little alone out there. He’d go off with certain people and groups, and you don’t understand if they’re really your friends. Now, there’s no mistaking. Paulina loves him to death. We love him and support him. We don’t judge him. No one is perfect. What is perfect is if you can do it the right way.
“Whether he made a few mistakes, that’s not my business. What the outcome is, that’s my business.”
The one-time jet-setting, hard-partying, Instagram-friendly couple now spends their nights watching “State of Affairs,” “Homeland” and “Sons of Anarchy.”
“Over these past four or five months I’ve really grown up, and I am starting to become the person I want my kids to look up to,” Johnson said.
