Dufner bounces back to win at Memorial
DUBLIN, Ohio — Jason Dufner spent quality time on the practice range that played in a big role in his victory at the Memorial. It had nothing to do with his swing. This was about beating balls to burn off the anger from a 5-over 77 in the third round that looked as though it might cost him the tournament. His pulse back to normal, which for Dufner means barely beating, he bounced back in a big way Sunday.
He stayed in the game during a wild stretch early, and then hit the ball so pure that he hit every green until the 18th and only once had a birdie putt over 12 feet. And then he capped off his 68 with a 30-foot par putt for a three-shot victory.
“Yesterday was not my best day,” Dufner said. “But I had to get over it quick. It’s a 72-hole tournament, there’s a lot of things that can happen out there. I knew I was still in the mix.”
The recap shows what an up-anddown week it was for Dufner.
He set the 36-hole record at Muirfield Village on Friday and built a four-shot lead. The 77 on Saturday dropped him four shots behind. And he wound up winning by three shots over Rickie Fowler and Anirban Lahiri.
“It was important for me not to leave this golf course angry and upset,” Dufner said. “I needed to leave it at the golf course yesterday, I felt like, and to move on. It would be best for me today. It wasn’t something that I planned or that I thought about, it’s just that’s what I felt like I needed to do.
Dufner finished at 13-under 275 for his fifth PGA Tour victory, and he earned mentions with Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo. He joined Nicklaus as the only Ohio-born winners of the Memorial, the tournament Nicklaus created in 1976 and won twice. And not since Faldo in the 1989 Masters had anyone shot a 77 in the third round of a PGA Tour event and still gone on to win.
He was happier about the first reference.
“I’ll always have a close place in my heart for this event, being a champion now,” Dufner said. “It will be very special for me to look back and know that I’m part of an event that Mr. Nicklaus put on out here on the PGA Tour.”