Eye of the Tiger: Barberton's Chase Johnson follows path of idol Woods to goal of PGA Tour

One summer at Firestone Country Club, Chase Johnson handed Phil Mickelson a photograph to autograph and Mickelson responded, “You want me to sign a picture of Tiger Woods?”

“No, that’s me,” replied Johnson, then 6 or 7 years old. “That’s a helluva backswing,” Mickelson said, according to Johnson’s father, Mel, who relayed the story.

Since his son’s birth, Mel Johnson had modeled his only child after Woods, following the tough training principles of Tiger’s late father, Earl.

Living and working in Barberton, Mel Johnson put a golf club in baby Chase’s hands. He paid kids to watch a young Chase play to get him used to performing in front of crowds. Mel set up cardboard cutouts of people’s faces or stuffed animals in front of a makeshift interview table, complete with microphone, to pepper Chase with questions. He inserted dollar bills in the cup to encourage Chase to make putts.

The boy watched the 1998 movie “The Tiger Woods Story” repeatedly. Chase was so successful copying Woods’ swing that Mel said Justin Rose wrote on the same photo, “The next Tiger Woods?”

When his first-grade teacher at St. Augustine School asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up, Chase was already set on a career as a professional golfer.

“She said, ‘You don’t have to be what your dad wants you to be.’ And I said, ‘Nope, this is what I want to do,’” he said.

Trying to play on the same stage as his idol is still a work in progress for Johnson, 28, a product of Walsh Jesuit High School and Kent State University.

At the end of the 2020-21 season, Johnson lost his Korn Ferry Tour card after a stretch of 16 missed cuts in 17 events. He rebounded in 2023 on the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA) tour, founded to create opportunities for minorities, winning three times and finishing second twice in the final five events.

Now Johnson finds himself in a whirlwind.

Woods personally selected Johnson to receive the Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption into the Genesis Invitational, a $20 million PGA Tour signature event Feb. 15-18 at Riviera Country Club. He sank a 4-foot putt on the final hole of the second round to make the cut — the third time in five PGA Tour events he’s reached the weekend.

His putter faltered and he finished 51st, last among qualifiers, earning $51,000. But not only did he and his dad spend a few minutes with Woods in the clubhouse, but Johnson and Sifford were featured in a segment during the CBS broadcast of the third round.

“It was an incredible opportunity to represent Charlie Sifford. Everything he’s done for the game has been incredible, to pave the path for Tiger,” Johnson said. “It was really cool to be able to play in that field against the best players in the world and to compete against my favorite player. I honestly was never sure towards the end of Tiger’s career if that would be a possibility.”

When Johnson returned home to West Palm Beach, Florida, after taking a Sunday red-eye to play an APGA event at TPC Sawgrass, he had 400 text messages and the voicemail on his cellphone was full.

“It’s been pretty hectic and exciting all at the same time,” Johnson said.

This week, Johnson received another sponsor’s exemption into the $9 million Cognizant Classic at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. But he left himself a stern test with a 4-over 75 in the first round, faltering in the last six holes to fall 11 strokes behind the leaders, and then failed to make the cut despite a second-round 72.

“I’m very excited for the opportunities I’ve had so far. The goal is to rack up as many points as we can and play well to earn temporary PGA Tour status,” Johnson said by phone. “I love doing the sponsor events, I love playing the pro-ams and meeting new people, so hopefully I can get a few more sponsor exemptions thrown my way and take advantage of them.

“I feel comfortable when I’m out there. I’m in my element and hopefully it’s just a matter of time before I can make it more permanent.”

Johnson is somewhat of a late bloomer when it comes to the PGA Tour. Mel Johnson, 60, a former Barberton High School running back who works at Howmet Aerospace making aluminum truck rims, puts his son’s situation more vividly.

“I think he’s a sleeping beauty,” Mel Johnson said. “I think eventually he’s going to wake up and see this. I used to tell him, ‘You’ve got to keep knocking on the door. If they don’t open it up, knock it down.’ The past couple weeks or so he’s been getting these [exemptions]. ‘Now you’re knocking on the door and they’re opening it up. You’ve got to walk through that door.’”

Johnson may get a boost from the conversation with Woods, even though his quest for Woods’ autograph continues. That was thwarted when the 15-time major winner and tournament host came down with the flu and was forced to withdraw on Friday at Riviera.

“I had a glove ready and he didn’t have a Sharpie on him. There were like 20 people back there and no one had a Sharpie,” Johnson said of their early week encounter. “I was like, ‘Come on guys, somebody help me out here.’ Tiger was like, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you later in the week for sure.’ Then unfortunately he gets sick and has to leave. I’ve been waiting on it since I was 5. I’m still waiting on it.”

Johnson had Mel with him but didn’t believe his golf fanatic father spoke other than getting out something like, “Hello. Pleasure.”

“That was amazing. Trying to get your tongue out of your stomach is a whole different feeling,” Mel said. “It was brief. They took us down a little hallway and people started coming in, so he had to make a quick exit. I got to shake his hand. I didn’t get my picture and my autographed golf ball, but no one had a marker. That’s what he does — he makes you forget things when you meet him.”

Johnson and Woods first met last fall, when Johnson competed in the World Wide Technology Championship on a course Woods designed in Los Cabos, Mexico. But Johnson’s pursuit of Woods’ autograph goes back to their yearly treks around Firestone South, where Woods has won eight times.

One year when Johnson came close still haunts him.

“I think it was about eighth grade …  I was fully decked out, wearing Nike head to toe,” Johnson said. “I had been within 20 feet of him two or three times that day following him on the course, squeezing my way through the crowds. I still remember a shot he hit, I think at 6, he was in this bare patch of grass and there was this huge patch of grass directly behind his ball and then another bare spot, so he couldn’t access the ball cleanly. This was the first time I saw how strength impacts golf. He swung and hit through the two or three inches of grass between the ball and where his club was and muscled it and it chased all the way onto the green. I think he may have even made the putt.

“Five or six hours later, after he finishes his range session, I was right there. I was first in line. I had waited for like 45 minutes.”

But the barrier to hold back patrons fell, and Woods was gone.

“Still have nightmares about that one,” Johnson said.

In 2024, Johnson believes he’s “trending nicely.” He’s rebuilt an unorthodox swing that his mentor, Miami-based Kyle VanHise, told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest was unwatchable because of its 48-yard draw/hook. Two years ago, Johnson began chipping cross-handed. With an analytical mind, he’s able to speak to VanHise on the phone from the driving range and make corrections alone, using videos only for social media posts.

Last year, Johnson made his first PGA Tour cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club, where his dad and mother, Cheryl, who works for the Barberton school system, watched his 7-under score tie for 64th.

“He’s real close. It’s so tough out there,” said former Kent State golf coach Herb Page, who was in Detroit last year following another Golden Flash, Taylor Pendrith. Page noted that KSU players took three of the top 51 spots at Riviera as Corey Conners tied for 24th and Mackenzie Hughes tied for 31st.

“[2023] validated all the work I’d put in with my wins and getting that monkey off the shoulder with the first cut made at Rocket Mortgage and putting myself in contention in Cabo at the World Wide Technologies,” Johnson said. “I think at one point I was in ninth during the second round. Again, the putter went stale on the weekend, but I played great. Now this season everything is continuing to trend. I feel like I have good control over my golf ball.

“Thursday [in Los Angeles] was a huge testament to how far my short game has come over the years. I got up and down from everywhere in the first round. I hit it horribly and put myself in contention.”

Even during his rough stretch, Johnson said he didn’t think about quitting. Mel Johnson told him to consider each missed cut as a building block.

“I had a lot of sleepless nights. Waking up in the middle of the night and being really stressed out, seeing the bank account dwindle,” Johnson said. “I was on Korn Ferry and I finished solo second in my second event and during my entire spell on Korn Ferry I felt raw. I felt like I didn’t have control of my game, but I was still able to compete and shoot 63s and rattle off low scores. I had been enlightened to some things and I realized it wasn’t exactly me all the time. My equipment wasn’t built correctly, and once I got that straightened out I saw a huge improvement. I always knew when I learned my game it was going to take a new level.

“It’s peaceful now because I feel like I can take a week off or two — just let the mind rest and come back and not feel that I’ve lost any form — where before if I took a day off it felt like a month.”

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Johnson also has the support of his fiancé, Katie Howarth, who was born in England and was started in golf early by her father, just like Johnson. They first talked after he got into a Korn Ferry event through a Monday qualifier.

“After a round, she was like, ‘You didn’t really take advantage of your par-5s today, but you still shot 69 and you’re within the projected cut,’” Johnson said. “I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I think I love you. Did you just say projected cut and follow my round with a ShotTracker?’

“She’s got a natural move. For the longest time she would get into position in the downswing that I was like, ‘I’m jealous. I can’t do that.’ She’s a mean TopGolf partner. Just lays her 7 irons right in that middle target every time.”

They’ve set a wedding date for Sept. 28, 2025, in Jupiter, Florida, with a plan that will make romantics swoon.

“My agent helped us get engaged on his boat on the ocean at sunset. The inlet we had come into to go to dinner, it’s in the same place where the wedding will be held,” Johnson said. “So we’ll come in engaged, and go out married. Hopefully the moon will be out, and it will be calm waters.”

For Johnson, the waters seem to be calming as well. There were many positives as he made the cut at Riviera while others such as Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley and Matt Kuchar departed early.

“I saw a lot of good improvements that I’ve been working really hard towards,” Johnson said. “It was bittersweet. The emotions flooded when I made the putt: ‘I’m in, that was huge, that was a big up and down.’ [But] I was like, ‘I’m even right now and I should be 5- or 6-under. I feel like I’m playing better than I’m scoring.’ Going out in the third round it was the same thing. I played great, I just didn’t get the ball in the hole.

“I see the aspects of the game I need to improve, mainly just making putts, especially on the weekend. It was fun. It was a big learning curve. It was a huge step in the right direction in my career and validated a lot of stuff, beating some of the best players in the world and making it to the weekend in that event.”

Since Chase turned 19, Mel Johnson said he has listened to his son, who told him, “‘I want your ear, not your mouth now.’” As Chase takes steps toward a promising future, Mel may resist the urge to remind him what Brad Faxon scribbled on that infamous picture the Woods-lookalike brought to Firestone.

“Brad Faxon wrote, ‘Beautiful backswing. Practice your putting,’” Mel Johnson said.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Training methods of Tiger Woods helped develop KSU's Chase Johnson