Is this the year Dustin Johnson wins his first Masters?

Brandel Chamblee believes Dustin Johnson is headed for golf’s hall of fame. He also believes the Dutch Fork High School graduate can’t win the Masters, at least this year.

“He's just not good enough around the greens,” said Chamblee, a former PGA Tour member and now Golf Channel’s lead anaylst.

Johnson will compete in his eighth Masters this week. His average finish is 28th and his best is a tie for sixth last year, which is the only time he’s finished better than minus-1 for the week.

He enters the 2016 Masters ranked ninth in the world, but he doesn’t scramble well enough to truly compete at Augusta, Chamblee believes.

“Dustin Johnson, year-in and year-out, is one of the worst bunker players in professional golf,” Chamblee said. “He only gets it up-and-down 40 percent of the time out of bunkers now. If you go back and if you look at the people that actually win at Augusta, they save par about 60 percent of the time. When you consider just how fast and undulating the greens are and how tight the fairways are, that's an extraordinary accomplishment. And they are marvelous out of the bunkers, marvelous.”

The comparison of Johnson and two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson because of their power off the tee doesn’t hold for Chamblee.

“Dustin Johnson has, you know, so many advantages that you would think would make him an obvious candidate to win at Augusta National, but in my opinion, there's a night-and-day difference between what Bubba Watson can do at Augusta National and Dustin Johnson,” Chamblee said. “Bubba is almost in a league by himself, and as we speak, Bubba leads the PGA in greens in regulation. My money's on Bubba well before it's on Dustin Johnson, at Augusta.”

Notah Begay, another Golf Channel analyst and former pro, believes the space between Johnson’s ears is as important as the space between his approach shots and the green.

“He has a tendency to lose focus,” Begay said. “Sometimes it's a couple holes, sometimes it's three or four, and it costs him. I think that's the one thing that I've learned in talking to players that have won majors.

“I mean, I've never won one. I've played in a few, but just the overall focus that’s needed to maintain, just you've got to scratch and claw for every single shot that you can save and every moment there is no opportunity to kick back and take a couple holes off. If you do, you're going to get passed. That's another thing that I believe will challenge him.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Is this the year Dustin Johnson wins his first Masters?."