The PGA Championship is now in the record books. The improbable rise of 36-year-old Jason Dufner has led to a most entertaining new major champion. For all intents and purposes, the professional golf season is over, and now is the time to focus on pennant races, college football and pro football. Well, not exactly.
Last weekend”s PGA Championship at Oak Hill in Rochester was a highly entertaining four-day ride. Similar to the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional, the first two rounds were a birdie-fest because of heavily saturated fairways and greens. When the course ultimately dried out during the weekend, it played more like the difficult major championship venue that it has always been. By Sunday afternoon, par was a very good score.
A cross between Tom Lehman and Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner won last week because of a brilliant record-tying 63 on Friday and an even better 68 on Sunday when his ball striking was as impressive a display of talent as seen in the final round of a grand slam event. Like Lehman, it has taken Dufner a long time to get to this point. Like Bubba, Dufner is a good-old boy from Auburn University with a beer belly, a pinch of Copenhagen between the lip and gum, and a viral label as the master of “Dufnering.”
As a 14-year-old, Jason”s family moved to Fort Lauderdale. He took up the game in earnest and yet he was under the junior golf and college radar once he graduated from high school. He attended Auburn and had to qualify to be able to be a walk-on with the school”s golf team. By the time he was a senior, he was an honorable mention All-American. He received his degree in economics in 2000 and had one noted amateur golfing moment, finishing runner-up to Trevor Immelman at the U.S. Public Links at Torrey Pines in 1998.
Dufner turned pro upon graduation and had an up-and-down nine-year career on the mni-tours. He won the Wichita Open in 2001 and the LaSalle Bank of Chicago Classic in 2006 on the Nationwide Tour. He got onto the PGA Tour in 2004 and 2007 but failed to stay in the top 125, thereby losing his exempt status. The only consistent thing about Jason”s game was that he was an annual regular at the PGA Tour Qualifying School.
Dufner kept his PGA Tour card after the 2009 season on the merits of a third-place finish in the Canadian Open and a runner-up finish at the Fed Ex Cup tourney in Boston. He didn”t play as well in 2010, but was solid enough to keep his card into 2011. He was a middle-of-the-pack guy, getting into the U.S. Open that season because Anders Hanson withdrew and getting into the British Open because Tiger Woods withdrew. He missed the cut in both.
Dufner got into the PGA Championship that August of 2011 at the Atlanta Athletic Club and turned heads with three solid rounds on the difficult layout. He had the lead in the final round with but three holes to play but ended up tied with Keegan Bradley at the conclusion of play. Bradley won the three-hole playoff. While the loss at the PGA must have been heart-breaking, he did learn as well as grow from the experience. Dufner broke out in 2012, beating Ernie Els in a playoff to win his first tour title after 164 starts at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans. He got married the next week, went on his honeymoon, and three weeks later he made a 25-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Byron Nelson Classic. He concluded the year by playing for the American Ryder Cup team while posting a 3-1 record in the biennial matches.
Like Bubba Watson, I do believe that this will be Jason Dufner”s one and only major win. However, he is a great ball striker and will probably be in the hunt in future majors. Prior to his PGA win, he did record a fourth-place finish at this year”s National Open. His putting is a bit suspect and that could be a factor at future sites. Nonetheless, Dufner is a most deserving major winner. He worked his way to golf”s center stage with blood, sweat and tears.
Two weeks ago, American Stacy Lewis won the Women”s British Open in dramatic style, making birdie on the final two holes at St. Andrews to win her second major title. Had it been a men”s major, we”d be talking about her Road Hole birdie and Swilcan Bridge birdie for the next 100 years. Alas, women”s golf plays third fiddle to the men and to the seniors. The LPGA Tour will continue to put on a great show, even if that show is lightly regarded by the golf fan base.
Speaking of majors and major venue, the U.S. Amateur is playing out this week at The Country Club just outside Boston. It was 100 years ago that The Country Club hosted the 1913 U.S. Open, won by amateur Francis Ouimet over the Tiger and Phil of that era, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. That tournament is the basis for the movie, “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
On the Tiger Woods front, while he has won five of seven regular tour events this year, he was 0-for-4 in the majors and is 0-for-22 since he won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. He”s still pretty dynamic at courses such as Bay Hill, Doral and Firestone, but he can”t putt on major weekends, he doesn”t practice as much as he used to — probably attributable to four knee surgeries — and he”s more like 45 years of age in golf years. Believe it or not, he”s barely older than Jason Dufner, but he”s much older in golf years. If you have a hard time buying my aging premise, check out the careers of Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle. All of them turned professional as teenagers. All of them were irrelevant in major tourneys by the time they reached their 40th birthday.
True, the Fed Ex Cup playoffs are on the horizon as well as the Presidents Cup at Muirfield Village coming after that, but I”m still in a major golf mode. With Adam Scott, Justin Rose and Jason Dufner breaking through this year, they should be inspiration for Lee Westwood, Jason Day, Matt Kuchar, Bill Haas, Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia to win that first grand slam title. In 2014, the U.S. Open will be contested at Pinehurst; Royal Liverpool (Hoy-lake) hosts the British Open; and the PGA returns Valhalla. Those courses as well as Phil Mickelson”s quest for a win at Pinehurst coupled with his dream of a career grand slam should make for a series of most entertaining storylines when the major championship season resumes at Augusta National for the Masters next April.
