What’s in a name? Ask Paulina Gretzky

ERIN, WIS. » Dustin Johnson has been in complete control of his golf game during his rise to No. 1. But at home? Paulina Gretzky calls the shots, especially when it comes to naming their children.

Johnson revealed Monday that their second child, another boy, was named River Jones Johnson. Asked where the name River came from, he said, “Mama.”

The middle name was easy to explain. Jones is the maiden name of Gretzky’s mother (Janet Jones), and the last name of Johnson’s late grandmother (Carole Jones), his biggest influence during his teenage years.

But back to River. What was Paulina thinking?

“I can’t think how she thinks, that’s for sure,” Johnson said. “I don’t know where she got it. I tried to ask. She said, ‘I don’t know, I just like the name.”’

They plan on calling him Riv, which is how several people refer to Riviera. That’s where Johnson won big this year at the Genesis Open to reach No. 1 in the world and start his three-tournament winning streak.

So maybe there’s something to that.

“That was how she got started was from Riviera,” Johnson said. “But I didn’t come up with that on my own.”

WHAT WILL PHIL DO NEXT?

Bad news for Phil Mickelson without even being at Erin Hills: The forecast calls for a reasonable chance of storms for all but one day this week — Thursday, when he’ll be in California for his daughter’s high school graduation.

Mickelson has yet to withdraw, saying he will need a four-hour delay in the first round of the U.S. Open to have any chance of flying to Wisconsin (more than three hours in the air) and getting to the first tee.

He is to play at 2:20 p.m. in Wisconsin. Graduation is noon (Wisconsin time).

At least his caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay, made it to Erin Hills to scout the course on the rare chance of Mickelson making it to the U.S. Open. Mackay thinks Erin Hills is perfect for Mickelson, mainly because of wide fairways and the need for a great short game.

“He wants it, obviously, as badly as he wants anything else,” Mackay told Fox Sports. “So it would be a really cool thing if it worked out for him tomorrow. Knowing Phil and knowing how much he wants to play, it wouldn’t surprise me if he left if rain wasn’t in the forecast. You never know out here with this kind of humidity. Storms can roll up unexpectedly.

“I’m leaving him alone, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he left, flew a little bit and then if the guys tee off at 2:20, turn around and go home.”

RING THE BELL

In a sunken patch of rough, just beyond the seventh tee box at Erin Hills, stands a rusted-out bell with the clapper removed.

When Erin Hills was first built, the bell stood near the green on what was then a blind par-3. Since the putting surface was not in sight from the tee box, players had to ring the bell to let the next group know the green was clear. A white rock behind the green was positioned every day to indicate the aiming point for the day’s pin position.

The hole was nicknamed the “Dell Hole,” after a similar hole at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland.

But during one of the course redesigns, thenowner Bob Lang ordered the area in front of the green bulldozed to make room for a new set of tees, and what had been the eighth hole was lengthened and turned into the new par-5 seventh.

“It was a unique hole,” said Steve Stricker, the Wisconsin native who was invited to play Erin Hills in the early days.

In the end, he agreed with Lang, who felt the USGA would never bring a U.S. Open to a course with a blind par-3.

Fortunate, then, that Erin Hills was originally built with 19 holes. What is now the par-3 ninth used to be called the “Bye Hole” — playable but didn’t count on the scorecard.

Stricker said he always thought that was the better of those par-3s.

“So I don’t know if that stuck with them or they thought the same thing,” he said. “But I wasn’t a big fan of the blind par-3.”