Dustin Johnson still feeling effects of Augusta injury

Dustin Johnson has admitted he is still not fully recovered from the back injury he sustained in a freak accident on the eve of the Masters in April.

Johnson landed heavily on the left side of his back after a fall down stairs at his rented home in Augusta shortly after the Wednesday par-three contest was abandoned due to adverse weather, and the world No 1 decided to withdraw moments before his first-round tee time after struggling on the range.

The world No 1 went into the tournament on the back of three wins in four starts, and after finishing tied for second in the Wells Fargo Championship on his return to action, he has since missed the cut at The Memorial and the US Open while failing to get into the top 50 at The Open last week.

Johnson hopes to get back to winning ways in a strong field at this week's RBC Canadian Open, but he revealed he was still affected by the damage caused by the untimely fall in Augusta.

He said: "Obviously I injured my back. It wasn't no bone or anything like that, it was just muscle. So I'm still feeling the effects of it. There's no pain or anything like that, but it's still a little tight and I'm having to get worked on a good bit just to try to loosen up those muscles and those tendons where it got injured.

"Obviously mentally, just a little lack of confidence maybe because I was playing so well leading into that, and for about a year leading up to The Masters, I've been playing really good golf. Maybe even more than a year.

"So it's been a little bit of a struggle just to get back, and I've had to put in a lot of work just to get back to where I was. I'm starting to see signs of it and it's all good, it's all positive and it's all definitely moving forward."

Johnson gave himself an outside chance of winning at Royal Birkdale when he posted a superb six-under 64 in the third round, but he plummeted down the leaderboard on the final day as a 77 left him 16 shots behind champion Jordan Spieth.

"Obviously I did play a good round on Saturday, and then just struggled on Sunday a little bit with everything," he added. "Coming over here, I've played here the last couple years at Glen Abbey and I like this golf course. I've played well here the last couple years I'm looking forward to it this year.

"I feel like the game is starting to turn around, and it's a good time for it to do that. It's close, but I've got three more events before the Playoffs start. I have the Canadian Open, the WGC in Akron and the PGA. So I've got three big tournaments in a row, and I'm working hard on the game.

"Starting to see signs of it getting back to how it was before Augusta and hopefully we'll start to see some good things here in the next few weeks."

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