PALM DESERT, Calif. (PA) -- From Waffle House to Wonder Land. It may have taken 11 years and he may now be just short of his 36th birthday, but when Welsh golfer Richard Johnson finally tees off as a member of the PGA TOUR this week, everybody should really stand up and applaud.
On and off the course, Johnson has survived a tortuous journey to get to where he always wanted to be. And now that he is there, he sees no reason not to aim even higher.
"I want to break into the world's top 50 by the end of the year -- I think that's reasonable," he said. "That gets me into the Masters (in 2009). Then there's the Ryder Cup. That's absolutely a dream of mine, especially with it being in Wales in 2010. By then I think I will be ready."
Johnson, son of Welsh PGA vice-chairman and Ridgeway Golf Club owner Peter, was raised near Celtic Manor, and he knows Augusta National well, too.
Augusta, Ga., is where he went to college, and it is also where, two years after turning professional in 1995, he could be found working in the Waffle House restaurant just along the road from the world-famous course.
His eight or nine months there included the week when Tiger Woods, playing his first major as a pro, won by a record 12 shots. What Johnson remembers most, though, is that David Duval was one of his customers.
"I played college golf with him and there was I working the grill," he said. "He didn't see me -- I was hiding behind my big hat. I thought it was ridiculous, but I badly needed a job at the time."
A teammate of Padraig Harrington when Britain and Ireland's amateurs beat Continental Europe in 1994, Johnson failed to follow the British Open champion onto the European Tour, instead played the second-tier Challenge Tour -- and found it "just horrible. Really horrible."
He decided to go back to the States, worked in the restaurant and then sold cars before doing well enough at PGA TOUR Q-School at the end of 1998 to earn a chance on the Nationwide Tour.
It looked a stepping stone when he won just his third event in his rookie season, being presented with a check for what felt like a fortune of more than $40,000, and then twice that for his second victory late in 2000. But his troubles were far from over.
After the thrill of leading the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am for a while when the opportunity to make his PGA TOUR debut came the following February, Johnson's season was cut short that June when he slipped on a bridge at a tournament and broke his wrist.
"It really set me back," he said. "Even when it healed I couldn't practice as much as I had and when I returned the next year the game just wasn't there. I was worse than awful -- embarrassingly bad."
In 25 Nationwide Tour events in 2002, he missed 18 cuts and earned less than $20,000, but 2003 and 2004 were even worse -- two cuts out of 17 starts with winnings of under $6,000, then one cut in 13 and only $8,000.
"I'd had some financial support, but the results were such a disaster that the plug was pulled. And my marriage broke up," he explained. "It was a terrible time. I lost my house, my car, everything. I'd had enough and thought that was it in terms of a career playing the game. I thought I might be able to coach at a college, but hunted for a job for ages.
"I went back to Britain eventually, gave the European qualifying school another shot without success and then played a few events on the EuroPro Tour," he added. "I won once (the Pokermillion.com Classic in England, which earned him $20,000) and might have won another but for the fact that I couldn't open the boot of my car before the final round and had to play with rental clubs. Not clever."
Johnson saw enough in his game, however, to decide it was worth making one more attempt at PGA TOUR Q-School. And this time it did prove a springboard to real success.
"I missed out on a TOUR card by a shot, leaving a putt a couple of inches short on the last," he said. "But looking back that was a good thing -- I wasn't quite ready."
Returning to the Nationwide Tour he earned about $100,000 in 2006, then hit the jackpot last year. After a string of top 10 finishes -- and playing in the final group on the final day four times without winning -- Johnson finally tasted victory again to guarantee a ticket to the PGA TOUR and then put the icing on the cake at the circuit's Tour Championship.
Taking the title there as well with a stunning 20-under-par display was worth $140,000 and sent him to the top of the money list with about 4440,000. It also lifted him into the world's top 120.
Johnson had made it after all he had been through -- and starting this week with the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic there will, of course, be even greater riches on offer.
"I've waited a long time for this and I'm excited about a lot of things. It's going to be a lot of fun," he said. "What I've learnt is that you can't do this without a massive support team -- and if you've got a wife, you need a really strong woman."
Now married again and based in Arkansas, Johnson knows that a big part of his success is also down to coach Mark Moore, who revamped his swing to solve the problem of putting too much spin on the ball.
At 6-foot-4, it is easy to tell him apart from Swede Richard S. Johnson, who is just 5-foot-7, but it has caused problems in the past. They both had the same club sponsors for a while, and it once resulted in one hefty tax demand that shocked him until he discovered it was meant for his namesake.
Money was a problem at the time. If 2008 and beyond turns out as he hopes, it won't be ever again.
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