Jason Dufner Nearly Holes Chip from Rocks at CareerBuilder Challenge

Sweden’s Lingmerth, meanwhile, shot the joint-best round of the week to close a five-shot deficit and take the tournament to a play-off. It will be important for him to get off to a good start alongside Dufner on Sunday. “I was pleased with the way I played the entire round”. He’s got some tricky bunkers. “You could get away with some wayward shots and still shoot in the 60s”. Hopefully I will play more consistently over the next few weeks.

Jamie Lovemark was second after a 65 on the Stadium Course.

Four of his birdies came on the back nine, and he had seized a one-shot lead before Dufner made his fourth birdie of the day at the 16th to rejoin Lingmerth atop the leaderboard.

Clearly, major championship winners are held to a different standard, and Dufner, 38, has had difficulty rising back to that level.

Dufner, aware of his advantage, found the putting surface and, after the Swede couldn’t hole out for an unlikely par following a drop, then he two-putted for a par and the victory at the CareerBuilder Challenge.

“It was pretty tough”, he said. “If I hit it the way I’ve been hitting it, driving it in play, I think there’s a lot of birdie opportunities still”. “I’m not too anxious about what other people are saying about golf courses. I could go ahead and hit a full sand wedge or a full gap wedge a couple times”. I got a great break and sometimes those things happen and you need them to happen to win. The Bengaluru golfer took his total to 13-under 203 after 54 holes of the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour tournament in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. He previously finished ninth at both the RSM Classic and the Sony Open in Hawaii. He holed out from 105 yards for eagle on the par-4 first, his 10th hole of the day. “There’s some long rounds out here”.

Names such as Anirban Lahiri from Pune, India; 20-year-old Si Woo Kim from Seoul, South Korea; and Adam Hadwin of Saskatchewan, Canada. The Nicklaus Course finished at 68.930, and La Quinta at 69.149.

Phil Mickelson, meanwhile, shot a four-under par 68 on Sunday, and tied for third in his first start of 2016.

Lovemark had a 65 on the Nicklaus Course. I should have probably choked up a little bit more on the grip, that would have probably… helped me not have the grass grab it so much, so it turned the ball over.

“Made that shot from 105 yards”.