Grandfather Art Whisnant played basketball at South Carolina and was a three-time all-Atlantic Coast Conference selection in the early 1960s…Younger brother Austin is a guard on the Charleston Southern University basketball team…Can dunk a basketball and could palm a basketball as a seventh grader.
Johnson was born in Columbia, South Carolina. He played collegiate golf at Coastal Carolina University. As an amateur, he won the Monroe Invitational and the Northeast Amateur in 2007 and played on the winning 2007 Walker Cup and Palmer Cup teams.
Johnson turned professional in 2007 and earned his 2008 PGA Tour card by finishing in a tie for 14th place in the 2007 qualifying school.
Johnson won his first PGA Tour event, the Turning Stone Resort Championship in October 2008. Four months later, he won his second event at theAT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, a tournament that was shortened to 54 holes when the final round was cancelled due to strong winds and heavy rain, leaving Johnson the winner by four strokes over Mike Weir and five strokes over second round leader Retief Goosen, who shot a third round 2 over par 74. Johnson finished the 2009 season ranked 15th on the PGA Tour money list.
In February 2010, Johnson birdied the final hole to defeat former world number one David Duval and two-time PGA Tour winner J. B. Holmes to successfully defend his AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am title.
Johnson continued his Pebble Beach success by shooting 71-70-66 to take a three shot lead over Graeme McDowell at the 2010 U.S. Open, but scored a disappointing 82 in the final round and finished T8 (McDowell won the tournament).
In the final round of the 2010 PGA Championship, Johnson held a one-shot lead entering the final hole. He appeared to have bogeyed the hole, which would have tied him for first and entered him into a three-hole playoff with Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer. However, he received a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker, thereby dropping him to a tie for fifth place. Kaymer eventually won the playoff.
Johnson did break his streak of bad luck by capturing the third FedEx Cup playoff event, the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in September. It was Johnson’s fourth career PGA Tour victory, and his first in any FedEx Cup playoff event. He finished the 2010 season ranked 4th on the PGA Tour money list.