| Advertisement |
DUBLIN, Ohio -- Jason Dufner still hasn't put together four good rounds at Muirfield Village. However, it hardly mattered Sunday as Dufner captured the Memorial Tournament with a bogey-free back nine to cap off a final-round 4-under 68. His 13-under 275 total bested India's Anirban Lahiri (65) and Rickie Fowler (70) by three shots.
Advertisement
The victory was the fifth of Dufner's career and the first since the 2016 CareerBuilder Challenge. The strong Sunday round provided a stark difference from Dufner's 77 on Saturday that erased his five-shot lead and sent him into the fourth round trailing Daniel Summerhays by four strokes.
Dufner didn't make it easy on himself at the end Sunday. Holding a two-shot lead on the par-4 18th, Dufner found the deep rough right of the fairway off the tee. He could only advance the ball 75 yards on his second shot and did not get back to the fairway.
Staring at a pressure-packed 32-foot, 7-inch par putt, Dufner put the ball in the center of the cup. And it even elicited an emphatic fist bump from the tranquil Dufner, who became the first golfer to win a PGA Tour event with a round of 77 or worse since the 1989 Masters when Nick Faldo also shot 77 in the third round.
Fowler wound up making bogey on the last hole to drop him into a tie with Lahiri and extend Dufner's winning margin.
Justin Thomas (72) and Matt Kuchar (73) finished tied for fourth at 279. Kyle Stanley (68), James Hahn (69), Bubba Watson (73) and Kevin Kisner (71), who won last week's Dean & Deluca Invitational, were at 280. Canada's Graham DeLaet (68), Jamie Lovemark (73) and Summerhays (78) tied for 10th at 281.
It wouldn't be the Memorial Tournament without a weather delay. Rain has been practically an annual tradition since 1976 when Jack Nicklaus founded the event. Along with a slew of challengers, Dufner also had to fend off Mother Nature.
Play was suspended twice in the final round. First at 4:18 p.m. for 77 minutes and again at 6:48 p.m. -- also for 77 minutes -- with just six players remaining on the course. It was the second consecutive Sunday in which play was suspended at Muirfield Village and the 27th Memorial Tournament that saw a weather day in the event's 42-year history.
Muirfield Village felt more like an arcade than a lush, pristinely manicured golf course on Sunday as players pinballed all around the leader board. Four players -- Summerhays, Dufner, Fowler and Watson -- led outright or shared the lead on an afternoon filled with momentum swings.
Lahiri, of India, made a Sunday charge, beginning the day 10 shots behind Summerhays. Eighteen holes later, Lahiri was 10 under after a bogey-free 65. He waited in the clubhouse for more than four hours, until Dufner's decisive 18th-hole putt, in case he was needed for a playoff.
Summerhays found trouble off the tee on the par-4 third, which began a two-hole spiral of double bogey-bogey. Birdies on the par-5 fifth and seventh holes gave Summerhays a share of the lead again, but he frittered it away after bogeys at 10 and 11.
Watson birdied three of his first six holes to take sole possession of the lead at 12 under until bogeys on Nos. 7, 8 and 12 put a dent in his chances.
Fowler appeared to seize control of the tournament after a birdie on the par-5 11th. However, a bogey on the par-4 14th and a squandered opportunity on the par-5 15th seemingly derailed Fowler's chances. On No. 15, he hit a fan going for the green in two and failed to get up and down for birdie.
NOTES: Harold Varner III aced the par-3 8th hole. It was the first hole-in-one at the Memorial since last year's final round when Rod Pampling carded a 1 on the par-3 16th. Varner used an 8-iron to ace the 185-yard hole. ... Jason Day (70), a Muirfield Village member, finished tied for 15th at 283, his best showing in the Memorial. ... Phil Mickelson (73) tied for 22nd at 285.
