Jason Dufner Survives Playoff to Collect First Win Since 2013

He had not won a tournament on the tour since his 2013 PGA Championship. He will play La Quinta on Saturday, and return to the Stadium Course for the final round Sunday.

“I had a lot of fun going toe to toe with Thomas Pieters”, Fowler said as he held the Falcon Trophy near the 18th green. I leaned the shaft a little bit with the face open and tried to hit one where you kind of get a lot of grip. “I was pleased with the way I played the entire round”.

Perhaps recalling the Twitter dustup, Dufner said after the round, “I’m out here to win tournaments”.

It was a further stroke back to Luke List (66), Jamie Lovemark (73) and Adam Hadwin (72).

“It has been a good three days”, Mickelson said. “It’s been a good start”. Dufner had another chance to win on his final shot in regulation, but missed just left of the hole.

“I don’t worry about zones and talking about stuff like that”, Dufner said. “I could go ahead and hit a full sand wedge or a full gap wedge a couple times”.

Still, Lahiri, 28, is trying to pave a new path among the greatest Indian golfers, players such as Jeev Milkha Singh, Arjun Atwal and Shiv Kapur.

The Tournament Course was proving profitable as Sweden’s Davind Lingmerth and America’s Kevin Na both 10-under-par shot 62 on there to be the biggest movers of the day.

“I wanted to hit 6-iron – about 180 to the front there”, Dufner said. “I wasn’t in between on too many of them”.

The win is a huge one for Dufner, who was at one point ranked inside the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings after three victories in two seasons between 2012 and 2013.

Brendan Steele tees off at the TPC Stadium course, which is distinguished by narrow areas of playable green freeway framed by brown rough. “It’s definitely the most hard of the courses we have played here”. On the PGA West 17th, Dufner explained, the tee is elevated, the shot longer (165 yards) and the wind trickier. “It’s a very penalizing course for anything less than perfectly struck shots”. The sun was setting when Dufner and Lingmerth played the second playoff hole. The Swede had six straight birdies from No. 14 to No. 1, eagled the par-5 fifth, birdied the seventh and closed with two pars. “I’m confident with what I can do with this shot and I need to make this happen and get a par'”.

The shot, “that low, little spinning one with some check on it”, as he put it, made a beeline for the hole, hit the pin and rolled away about a foot.