Johnson brings in top-notch field for second classic

CEDAR RAPIDS - Twenty-six PGA Tour victories. Two major championships. More than $100 million in career earnings.

Those are the totals of the seven Tour pros in today's Zach Johnson Foundation Classic.

That is talent, and these are golfers of accomplishment.

“They're all good friends of mine,” Johnson said in May.

Local boy Johnson is the hook for the event

Just a weekend ago, Scott Stallings won the Tour's True South Classic. That gave him his second win in his two-year Tour career, a pace the majority of Tour pros would happily take.

Stallings had struggled this season because of torn cartilage in his ribs and two herniated disks in his back, and has only recently returned to good health.

Stallings became the fourth member of the ZJFC field to win on Tour this year. Kyle Stanley and Johnson Wagner won early, and Johnson won the Crowne Pointe Invitational in May and the John Deere Classic two weekends ago.

The other three players are a million par-5s from being considered slouches.

Stewart Cink is a six-time Tour winner who won the 2009 British Open. Cink, with more than $30 million in career winnings, is one of Johnson's closest friends and, like Stanley, is making his second appearance at the ZJFC.

Though he hasn't won this year, Bo Van Pelt is 21st on the money list. Ben Crane, 33rd on the money list, had a final-round 65 at the John Deere to tie for 13th.

Stanley, like Johnson, is sponsored by Transamerica. He won in Phoenix the week after he lost in a playoff at the Farmers Insurance Open. In 2009 he won the Ben Hogan Award, given to the top men's player in college and amateur events over a 12-month period.

Johnson only bumped up the star-power of the field with his performances in the last few months. He has two seconds to go with his two wins, which gave him nine in a nine-year Tour career. He tied for ninth at last weekend's British Open, his highest finish in that event.

Johnson is third on the money list with $4,037,284 and has virtually bolted down his third Ryder Cup berth for September in Medinah, Ill.