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Vincent Publishing - 2008 Wachovia Championship - Index

JIMMIE JOHNSON
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PHOTO: SAM GREENWOOD/GETTY IMAGES
“ I
played in high school but I never really
took it seriously. I’d go out with a few of
my friends and play 12-14 holes and
wouldn’t finish the full round. Just go out
and have some fun.”
Before catching his NASCAR ride in 2002,
Johnson moved to the Charlotte area in
order to get closer to the action.
“In our sport, the entire industry is centered
in the Charlotte area, so as a young
driver coming up through the ranks, I
knew that if I wanted to have a career in NASCAR
racing, I needed to move to North Carolina and be
around it and get close to it,” he said. “So, I packed my
bags and moved to North Carolina to try and find my
way into the industry - to get to know the people, the
players, the sponsors, the team owners and all that
stuff and Charlotte was the place to be.”
Since his rookie season in 2002, Johnson ranks second
among all active drivers with an average of 4.5
wins a season and second in average top-10 finishes a
season with 21.25 (behind Tony Stewart’s 21.28). In
2006, he became the only driver to win the Daytona
500, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, Aaron’s 499
and the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Championship all in
the same year. He is the only driver to win three Coca-
Cola 600s in a row. He also holds the record at Lowe’s
Motor Speedway with four straight wins and five
total point-race wins at the track. In 2007, he became
the first driver since 1998 to win four straight races.
He didn’t start playing golf seriously until 2006 during
the Chase for the Cup, when he really started to
get into the game and pay more attention. That’s
when he fell in love with golf.
“In that year during the chase, there was so much
stress that I needed something to take my mind off
my racing. My wife, Chandra, being the great person
that she is, fortunately said, ‘Jimmie, you need to go
and play some golf or something.’”
“So Mondays are an off day and I have a lot of good
friends who are members at Quail Hollow and some
other nice courses in the area. They’ve been nice
enough to take me and let me skip out for a couple
hours of work on a Monday afternoon to relax and
play some golf.”
Last year, Johnson’s game was fit enough to garner a
playing spot in the Wachovia Championship Pro-Am,
one of the PGA TOUR’s most sought-after pre-tournament
occasions.
“I can’t tell you how frightened I was on that first tee
last year. That was one of the more intimidating
His most recent charity golf event was when he co-hosted the Super Skins Celebrity
Golf Classic in Scottsdale, AZ with singer and good friend, Nick Lachey. The event
was held in conjunction with the Super Bowl and raised more than $500,000 for
14 charities. The duo are committed to the event for the next two years.
things I have ever done in my life,” he said. “It’s one
thing to know your craft and be on the big stage like
in our sport where we’ll have 200,000 fans there, but
there I know what I’m doing. To the casual golfer
who gets up there playing in a Pro-Am and teeing off
as Tiger and Jordan are coming off of 18 - I’m going
off on one and I wonder what I’m doing there. The
club head was curving like four to six inches off line
and I was jerking it around. It was ugly.”
Much like driving a new car for the first time, all it
took was a few laps to get settled in.
“I really had a good time. Everything worked out well
and I was able to relax after four or five holes. Then I
started playing at least to my standards and really
enjoyed the experience.”
The experience at Quail Hollow and the Wachovia
Championship Pro-Am gave Johnson some insight
into the world of professional golf and how good
these guys really are.
2008 Wachovia Championship Official Event Program