Zach Johnson talks about aiming higher than his heights of 2009 - which were pretty high

I called Zach Johnson's agent on Wednesday to try to arrange a phone interview. On Thursday, Johnson called me from his home in Sea Island, Ga.

To you, that may be of little interest. To me, who tries to connect athletes of interest with Iowa ties to readers with Iowa ties, it's extremely helpful.

If they aren't willing to cooperate, you learn less about them. It's that simple. And some athletes prefer it that way. I don't blame them for that, but they may lose sight of who it is that allows them to ply their trades for considerable sums. That's you people, the public.

This piece by Garry Smits of the Florida Times-Union, written this week, tells how many PGA Tour stars aren't especially helpful to the media. But Smits list exceptions.

Sergio Garcia, for example, has a marvelous personality when things are going well. When they're not, or if he's simply in a petulant mood, forget about approaching him. Camilo Villegas, charming and witty in group interviews or brief TV sessions, has become unapproachable in one-on-one situations, which is where interesting nuggets about people tend to come out. Retief Goosen rarely cracks a smile. While I have had few problems with Vijay Singh, possibly because he's seen me at Tour events for 15 years, I've seen how hard other reporters have had to work to get anything out of the Big Fijian.

Other players, while more available, rarely let us in their cocoon. Stewart Cink said as much in a recent Golf Channel interview, when he said it's difficult for players to let their emotions out when high-level tournament golf requires tunnel vision. I don't know what the answer is but someone should at least crack a smile when making a birdie.

There are notable exceptions among the world's top players, such as Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Zach Johnson, Jim Furyk, Kenny Perry and Geoff Ogilvy. Many others are good with writers and electronic media they see frequently, but with newspapers cutting travel, that list is dwindling all the time.

That said, here's my Friday column for the Gazette on Johnson and how he's approaching the 2010 season:

You can be satisfied with nearing the stratosphere of your profession, or you can try to go higher.

Some, like Zach Johnson, don't see it as a choice.

“Last year was good, no question about it,” Johnson said Thursday from his Sea Island, Ga., home. “It was good for a number of reasons. I think it still could have been better.”

Last year was very good. The Cedar Rapids native, No. 22 in the World Golf Rankings, was fourth on the PGA Tour's money list with $4.714,813, and sixth in the FedExCup point standings.

Johnson won two events to up his career total of victories to six, had nine Top Tens, and easily eclipsed the best scoring average of his six-year Tour career with 69.82 strokes per round. He played for the winning U.S. team at the President's Cup in October.

If you could offer a year like that to every player on the Tour for 2010, you'd get a lot of takers. Johnson, though, would rather aim for higher ground.

“There are still a lot of areas I need to improve on,” he said. “That's my outlook for 2010. I don't want to get complacent, is the point.

“The goals I established for 2009, I met for the most part. There are a couple of things I still want to focus on. I've kind of gone away from results-oriented goals. I don't establish goals like winning multiple tournaments, winning a major, making a Cup team. My goals are more process-oriented, improving on areas of my golf game I feel could take me to another level.”

This routine-driven sportsman said he wants to sharpen his tournament-week practice routines, “knowing exactly what I want to do and how to do it each day.”

On the course, he said “continuing to make my short game sharper” is a high priority.

As with most other athletes, what Johnson does in his off-season is vital to his success. After each season, Johnson calls for a “team meeting” in Sea Island with his coaches and caddie to get their input on where he needs the most improvement and how best to work on it.

“We get some things on paper to chew on, then we try to spit out something that was more productive than the last year. You would think after ‘09 that you were where you wanted to be, but you never get too content with where you are.

“Have I reached my potential? Have I hit a ceiling? Is this as good as I'm going to get? I don't ask myself those things. Instead, you try to work hard and keep getting better.

“Realistically, last year was very, very good. But as a competitor - which is what I really am - I'm still not overly satisfied with it. There were a number of weeks I felt I should have been better.”

Two such weeks just passed. Johnson began the 2010 season with an 18th-place finish at Maui's SBS Championship, then tied for 12th as he tried to defend his Sony Open title in Honolulu. Again, many others would take those results and feel good.

“I'm off to a decent start,” he said. “I'm not saying it was bad. There are still areas I need to polish off.

“I'm taking the next four weeks off starting this week. I played a lot (of non-Tour events) in November and December, probably too many. So I'm taking time off to refresh my battery and get ready for a pretty jam-packed spring.”

Johnson has already been a winner this year, though, courtesy of his favorite college football team. He had Orange Bowl bets with Georgia Tech graduates/PGA players Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar.

With British Open champ Cink, the wager was a hundred bucks that was paid via a dinner in Hawaii. Kuchar, however, had to use an Iowa Hawkeyes golf club head-cover during the Sony Open.

Johnson would have attended the Orange Bowl in Miami had it not been for the Maui tourney, open only to winners of PGA Tour events the year before.

“It's a nice sacrifice to have to make,” he said. “Besides, Iowa's 2-0 in bowl games when I've been in Maui, so I want to keep that going.”