Time to golf again: Zach Johnson puts best foot forward this week at Riviera

The Bill Murray segment of the PGA Tour season ended Sunday, and now it's time for golf's stars to command attention at their tournaments.

Actor/golf aficionado Murray won the amateur portion of the celebrity pro-am at Pebble Beach Sunday in the Tour's stop there. He had fun, television viewers had fun, tourney-winner D.A. Points had fun, and away the pros go to Los Angeles.

That's where Zach Johnson, Cedar Rapids' son on the Tour, will begin his 2011 season in earnest.

Healthy and ready to go, Johnson ends a four-week layoff from competitive golf this week at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club. It's a star-laced field at a venue and tourney held in high esteem in the sport.

From there, Johnson will go to Tucson, Ariz., for the World Golf Championships Accenture Match Play Championship. Then?

"I'll hit Florida pretty hard in preparation for Augusta," Johnson said.

Meaning, he'll play a few tourneys in Florida leading up to the Masters in early April.

A four-week in-season pause is unusual for Johnson, but he's never been much for playing the West Coast events in January and February. And, he had a physical setback that made taking time off seem like a prudent move.

He was vacationing with his family in the Grand Cayman Islands. On their last night there, a fire caused by what he said were legal, "glorified sparklers" in a rubber wastebasket next to the house he was using.

Wearing flip-flops, Johnson went running up some stone terrace steps with a hose to douse the fire. He didn't see one of the steps and jammed his right foot. It cost him half the toenail on that foot.

Adding to the aggravation, he had to fly all the way to Hawaii the next day for the season-starting Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

"It was crazy," he said. "I had to wear flip-flops on the flight. I saw a doctor there to get antibiotics, and I played that week."

Johnson did well to tie for 23rd in the event considering the Kapalua Resort course in Maui is one of the toughest walks on the Tour.

"It was made for goats, it's so hilly," Johnson said. "trying to navigate the course with nine toes wasn't easy."

He cut out the big toe area of his regular golf shoe, taped up the injured toe, and played decent golf.

He went to Honolulu the following week and tied for 57th in the Sony Open, a tourney he won in 2009. Then he came home to St. Simons Island, Ga., for four weeks off.

In the middle of his time away from the Tour, Johnson slipped back to Iowa. He received the Double D Award from his Drake University alma mater, the highest honor the school's athletic department gives to former athletes after they have graduated.

The 2007 Masters champ also continued to make headway in planning the pro-am event the Zach Johnson Foundation is holding at Elmcrest Country Club this Aug. 1.

"The board has been doing some awesome leg work on that," Johnson said. "We're just trying to find a way to help kids and their families in Cedar Rapids and Linn County so it makes a long-lasting impact. I firmly believe we're on the right track.

"If things come to fruition the way I think they will, it will be pretty darn exciting."

Before that, there is a lot of golf to be played. Johnson will try to add to his impressive body of work, which includes seven Tour wins in his seven full seasons, and victories in each of the last four years.

Besides winning the Crowne Plaza Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas, Johnson tied for third in the PGA Championship and played for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup last year.

He is probably just one more paycheck from the $20 million mark in PGA Tour career earnings. He turns 35 next week, and he sounds more hungry than content professionally.

"I certainly feel like I'm learning all the time," said Johnson. "I'm never fully satisfied.

"I ‘d say I was satisfied with the way I approached last season and how I rebounded in certain situations, but I'm never content with where I'm at."