NORTON, Mass. — At the Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey, Jason Gore outdrove his playing competitor, Dustin Johnson, by 13 yards on the second hole, a 445-yard par 4. Gore, who is four inches shorter than Johnson and easily 50 pounds heavier, flexed his right biceps. Gore’s gesture last week during the third round of the Barclays, the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs, elicited laughter from Johnson, who is built like a 6-foot-4 small forward to Gore’s 250-pound beer league shortstop.
Gore, 41, grew up playing junior golf with Tiger Woods, whose dominance and diligence to running and off-course conditioning helped spawn a generation of millennial golfers as sculpted as ancient Greek statues.