After years of pain, this golf cult hero is suddenly back in contention

It’s hard keeping track of everyone in pro golf. One hundred and fifty-six players in the field, 250-ish with PGA Tour cards, thousands of others in the world ranking. Focus too much on the 30 players in the Tour Championship and you can lose track of a few names. You can forget a few faces. 

But that Andrew Johnston was a special lad. The nickname was unforgettable: Beef. And the face — covered mostly in a rugged beard, with imperfect teeth the staple of a permanent smile — you’d never forget it. Eight years ago, Beef Johnston was the most infectious personality in the game. He bounded onto everyone’s radar with a victory at the 2016 Spanish Open and then contended at Wentworth before drawing massive crowds and finishing 8th at the Open at Royal Troon. 

“The best week of my golfing career,” Johnston said in an interview with Nick Lozito this summer. Fans flocked to get close to him at the next major, the PGA Championship just a few weeks later at Baltusrol. At just 27 years old then, it felt like a lovable star was just starting to shine. Arby’s certainly thought so, making a fantastically on-brand endorsement of the golfer with a meaty nickname. But anyone who fell for Beef that summer likely knows how cruel this sport can be. It gives and it takes, and not always equitably. Which is why we haven’t been talking about Beef much the last few years. 

There was his first year on the PGA Tour, defined by a new thumb injury that made golf painful. When he came back, there was a back injury. And when that was settled, that same thumb issue reared its ugly head again. 2022 and 2023 were lost to surgeries, allowing him to play just one tournament in a two-year span. His world ranking plummeted.

Johnston returned to top-level competition late in 2023, the beginning of the 2024 DP World Tour season. His previous status awarded him spots in the field via a “membership extension,” akin to a major medical exemption on the PGA Tour, but none of them were special. He missed five cuts, withdrew once, but on June 25 of this year, his world ranking was 2,055. 

Instead of being in Troon for the eight-year reunion of the best golf of his life, he was missing the cut in California at the Barracuda Championship. 

A four-week break followed the Open during this Olympics year, and it was during that break that something changed for Johnston. It’s not clear what — mostly because he hasn’t been tasked with explaining his descent to the media quite yet. But the deadline on that interaction is running out, because Johnston is building a bit of a heater. Not the kind that warms the whole house — more of a space heater that warms up one room at a time.

There was his T23 at the Czech Masters, where he shot a course record. He followed it up a week later by making the cut and tying for 42nd in Denmark. A week after that was the Betfred British Masters, overshadowed by the Tour Championship in Atlanta, where Beef finished T18, his first top 20 in nearly three years. It was quiet, that finish, with un-flashy scorecards of 72-73-70-69. But it was good enough for him to tie Tyrrell Hatton, one of the best players in the world. 

Surely that felt good. A building block of sorts on the road back. But it will struggle to compare to what might come from Johnston this weekend. The man from London is carving his ball through the mountains in Switzerland at the Omega European Masters, making 10 birdies and an eagle in the opening two rounds. Were it not for fellow Englishman Matt Wallace playing perfect golf, Beef would be just two shots back of the lead. Instead, he’s two back of second, and six back of first. (Kudos, Matt.) 

All of which brings you to the doorstep of the first full weekend of September. The NFL kicked off last night. There’s no PGA Tour to be had. No LPGA Tour either. College football is off and running, and on Sunday afternoon there’ll be too much NFL action to worry about golf, right? That’s what the weekend mornings are for. Because there’s one major tour with golf on this weekend, and it’s the one featuring Beef Johnston. It’ll be on when you wake up. Coffee golf. Eggs and toast golf. The kind taking place seven time zones ahead, with a story we all have struggled to keep track of.