Australian Open: Who is Ryggs Johnston? Meet the unheralded contender for the championship

Meet Ryggs Johnston, the next best thing to come from Montana since Yellowstone. It’s a name that spurs the imagination, but it’s his form on-course at the Australian Open which turned heads.

Ryggs Johnston of the US tees off during the third round of the 2024 ISPS Handa Australian Open Golf tournament at the Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne on November 30, 2024. Picture: AFP

The leader of the Australian Open is an American bloke called Ryggs Johnston, which brings to life all types of visualisation opportunities.

With a name like Ryggs, he has to be ripped, surely? He’s just flung open the doors of a mid-western bar in America, resplendent in cowboy boots and hat. He has a swagger, a slow drawl, and drives one of those trucks which always seem too big for just the one parking spot.

But he’s really none of that.

The real big Ryggs is tall and lean, a human two iron who is very handy hitting one as well. He’s the next best thing after Yellowstone to come from Montana, where temperatures in his small hometown were due to plunge to -11 degrees overnight. There are three traffic lights in the entire town, and “not a whole lot going on” in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.

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Ryggs Johnston tees off at the Australian Open. Picture: AFP

It might explain why, you guessed it, his parents thought nothing of naming their son after the Lethal Weapon character.

“My dad’s side has a lot of ‘R’ names, and after a while you run out,” said Johnston, who would play basketball and no golf for four or five months every year because it was so cold. “They had to get a little creative. I love the name. I think it’s great.”

He’s also largely unemotional, a fitting contender for an Australian Open which had one of those days which elicited only a little emotion on Saturday. It was wet, miserable, just needed to be done.

Come Sunday, it will be anything but as Johnston (68) heads into the final round in a share of the lead with Lucas Herbert (72) at 14-under after a testing day which featured some sparkling golf from a man ranked 954 in the world.

But then big Ryggs got sandbelted.

Ryggs Johnston hits out of the rough during the third round of the Australian Open. Picture: AFP

To play a par five on Kingston Heath and not make birdie is a little criminal. To have a double bogey is sinful.

Leading by two with five holes left of his third round, big Ryggs almost blew it all.

He drove into the thick scrub. Hacked out of it when the sensible play might have been to opt for an unplayable. It ended up in even worse scrub, as you do. On his tiptoes, he axed it out to a fairway bunker. Went long out of there. Couldn’t get up the slope to the green. Finally finished the hole.

Sandbelted.

Ryggs Johnston reacts during day three of the Australian Open. Picture: Getty Images

“I played so well leading up to that point,” Johnston said.

Not every Australian Open can be a classic. An Aaron Baddeley channelling comparisons to Tiger Woods winning as an amateur, Rory v Adam, Jordan Spieth topping a young Cameron Smith and a battling Ashley Hall in a play-off classic, Joaquin Niemann launching a ball over a beer tent to make a play-off in fading light.

Sometimes, you have 24-year-old Ryggs Johnston contending – and he thinks that’s just all right.

With Adam Scott and Jason Day at home, Cameron Smith and Min Woo Lee flaming out, and Cameron Davis not making the cut, this year’s event is made for a Johnston-type winner. Victorians Herbert, and an ever present Marc Leishman (-11), might have a say yet.

“I don’t want to put any added pressure on myself because I found I play well when I try to play free and not care that much about results,” he said. “It hasn’t quite hit me yet [about being in the final group of an Australian Open].”

Originally published as Australian Open: Who is Ryggs Johnston? Meet the unheralded contender for the championship