Thursday, August 29, 2013

Stenson posts 2nd straight top-3 finish at a major

Stenson posts 2nd straight top-3 finish at a major

Stenson posts 2nd straight top-3 finish at a major
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Henrik Stenson, of Sweden, lines up a putt on the 12th hole during the final round of the PGA Championship golf tournament at Oak Hill Country Club, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2013, in Pittsford, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
AP - Sports
PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP) -- Henrik Stenson has closed with a 70 in two straight majors, steady performances under pressure.
Problem is, someone else was making a bunch of birdies.
The 37-year-old Swede finished third at the PGA Championship, three weeks after he was the runner-up at the British Open.
At Muirfield last month, it was Phil Mickelson's brilliant final round, and Stenson was three strokes back. This week at Oak Hill, it was an unflappable Jason Dufner with a 68 on Sunday, and Stenson again was three shots behind the winner.
Oh, and in between he tied for second at the Bridgestone Invitational when Tiger Woods ran away with a seven-stroke victory.
After winning The Players Championship in 2009, Stenson struggled through three tough years hampered by illness and injury. But the way he's playing now, maybe Sweden will final get its first major men's champion.
The country had two chances Sunday, with Stenson and Jonas Blixt playing in the next-to-last group. Stenson started the day at 7 under, two strokes behind 54-hole leader Jim Furyk and one back of Dufner.
Blixt, who came in at 6 under, also shot a 70 to finish fourth.
After bogeying the first hole, Stenson curved in a long eagle putt at No. 4 to move to 8 under, a stroke out of the lead. He knew he had to make birdies, but he just couldn't get enough of them.
''I thought I needed to get to double figures, that's for sure,'' Stenson said.
He was right. Dufner won at 10 under.
Stenson's chances all but ended with some bad luck on the par-4 14th. His tee shot landed in the rough short of the green - in a divot. He chunked his wedge into a bunker and went on to bogey the hole.
''It's all written in the stars if it would have been a different scenario,'' Stenson said. ''I'm happy and proud of my performance. Didn't play my absolute best today, that's for sure. I was still giving it a good fight and I had an unbelievable round and some great tournaments in the last month.''

Jason Dufner claims PGA Championship … and some Oak Hill acorns

Jason Dufner claims PGA Championship … and some Oak Hill acorns

Eric Adelson 
Yahoo! Sports
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – There was a little Ziploc bag waiting for Jason Dufner in the car on Sunday evening.
When his wife, Amanda, got to the course in the early afternoon, she left it in there, to be taken home to Alabama after the PGA Championship was over.
Inside the bag were a handful of acorns gathered from the Oak Hill Country Club. On Thursday, Jason slipped them into her hand and said, "Here are some acorns; keep finding 'em." She did so, and placed them into a refrigerator for the weekend. The couple would take them back to their 50 acres of land and plant them, and maybe a mighty oak would someday stand.
"Hopefully," Amanda said Sunday, "one of 'em will survive."
While the acorns sat and waited, Dufner walked up the most picturesque hole on the golf course Sunday. It's the 13th, known as the Hill of Fame, because many of the oaks there have plaques with names of men and women who have contributed significantly to the game of golf. Names like Dwight Eisenhower, Tom Watson, Babe Zaharias. 
Jason Dufner, right, kisses the Wanamaker Trophy with his wife Amanda. (AP)
Dufner walked past all those oaks as the sun began to set, charging up the hill with thousands of people watching in rapt attention. He didn't smile or wave – he never seems to emote at all on the course – but it was clear what was happening amidst the trees. A man's tiny dream was growing big.
Dufner was impenetrable here at Oak Hill, fending off nerves and his own history of major failure to complete one of the prettiest finishing rounds you'll see in a major championship. Two years after blowing the PGA Championship in Atlanta, Dufner grabbed it like it was his 10th rather than his very first. Dufner shot a 68 to win on Sunday, finishing 10-under par and two strokes clear of a field that surely thought the leaders would give something back on championship Sunday. This leader did not. It was loud all around him, yet his air was quiet – a man locked deeply in his own focused mind.
Dufner would likely have won more tournaments by age 36 if it weren't for his putter. Inside of five feet, he's one of the worst on Tour statistically. And on Sunday, when faced with a three-footer on the very first hole, his anxiety spiked in a way that is never apparent on his face. He made the putt, and he began to relax.
Then he let his irons do the work. And those iron shots are a sight to behold. Every single one appears effortless – a white tracer against a blue sky, almost like a firework that hangs there and doesn't detonate.
"Few people like him come along," says longtime friend Nick Malinowski, who played on the Nationwide Tour. "Few people control a golf ball the way he does."
Jim Furyk played superb golf all afternoon in that final pairing, but he couldn't get close enough to the pin to make birdies. Dufner, though, seemed to land just about everything so close that his traditional putting issues weren't a factor. He went 27 straight holes without a bogey on one of the most challenging courses in the world. He hit 75 percent of his greens for the tournament.
So many of these majors come down to someone's error. Not this one. Dufner entered the final round a stroke behind Furyk, made up the deficit with a birdie on the fourth hole, took the lead with another birdie on the fifth and never gave it up.
Dufner won this major far more than Furyk, who shot 71 on Sunday, lost it.
It was won, appropriately, with one of Dufner's approach shots. On 16, only moments after tossing a ball to 14-year-old Dallas Antonio in one of his only interactions with fans all day, Dufner lobbed an iron shot to within a foot-and-a-half of the cup. At that point, there was no drama left other than whether the Cleveland native would actually show an expression other than that Jason-Dufner-is-not-impressed gaze. He had a small celebration when he tapped in to win, and he grinned afterward, but the more visible show of emotion came from Amanda, who welled up more than once in the moments after the victory.
Standing on the 18th green after the trophy presentation, Malinowski was asked why Dufner always looks so …
"Melancholy?"
Yes. Melancholy. The man looks distant, even depressed.
"Even when he's doing things that would call for it, he's not emotional that way," Malinowski said. "He knows he's only here for so long and the game is bigger than him."
And everything that Malinowski and Amanda have said about Jason Dufner this week points to that. He loves the history of the game and the perspective it takes to excel at it. He's reduced it to a knowable science: "Golf is a little more boring [than the other major sports]," he told reporters Sunday. "You either hit it on the fairway or you didn't. You either hit it on the green or you didn't." All he did this week was hit it on the fairway and hit it on the green. It was the perfect show of respect for this great course and those who have played on it before. Dufner wasn't ever beaten down by this course, and he was never above it either. He was ofthis course, aligned with it.
Now there will be a plaque on this course with his name on it. He is part of the history he so cherished.
"My name will always be on this trophy," he said, "and nobody can take that away from me."
Jason Dufner will always have that trophy. He'll always be a major champion. But it's likely he'll be even more proud of the acorns he took from this place, and how one of them will grow into something special that will live long after he's gone.

Golf-'Dufnering' has new meaning after PGA Championship win

Golf-'Dufnering' has new meaning after PGA Championship win

Reuters 
By Steve Keating
 ROCHESTER, New York, Aug 11 (Reuters) - 'Dufnering' took on a whole new meaning on Sunday when laid-backJason Dufner claimed the PGA Championship, transforming the 36-year-old cult figure into a major winner.
 Dufner, who is not prone to displays of emotion, allowed himself a sheepish smile and a hesitant double fist bump following a two-shot victory over Jim Furyk.
But he left the real celebrations to the galleries packed around Oak Hill Country Club's 18th green that watched him clinch the season's final major two days after he shot a 63, matching the lowest round in any major.
 Until Dufner planted a shy kiss on the shiny Wanamaker trophy in the fading sunlight, he was best known as a social media sensation - the inspiration behind the 'Dufnering' craze which went viral.
 Despite being a two-time winner on the PGA Tour, it was not until last April when golf fans began to take notice of Dufner when he was photographed apparently nodding off as he lay with his back to a wall, arms by his sides and legs stretched out in front of him while visiting grade schoolers to help promote a tournament in Dallas.
Since then, multiple versions of 'Dufnering' have been posted by golfers, golf fans and the general public on social media.
"Got some notoriety for maybe something that was probably trying to hurt me a little bit and ran with it and it helped me a lot," said Dufner. "I got a lot of fans because of it and people identified me through it and that was good."
 Until 'Dufnering', the only notoriety Dufner had was for spectacularly blowing a five-shot lead with four holes to play at the 2011 PGA Championship and eventually losing to Keegan Bradley in a playoff.
There would be no repeat of the Atlanta Athletic Club meltdown on a sunny, Sunday at Oak Hill.
Playing with cool consistency, Dufner seized the outright lead from Furyk with a birdie on the fifth hole and never faltered, opening up a two-shot cushion at the ninth and holding it through to the finish.
Furyk, bidding to add a PGA Championship to the U.S. Open title he won a decade earlier, was unable to put any pressure on the unflappable Dufner, who went 26 consecutive holes without a bogey before dropping a shot at the 17th.
But Furyk also dropped a shot on the penultimate hole to remain two behind.
It was a remarkable display of composure for a man that must surely have lived with the haunting memories, of two years ago when the Wanamaker trophy was within his grasp, only to let slip through his fingers.
"You always carry those scars with you, he (Bradley) always jabbed at me a little bit about having one of these in his house, and thanks for giving it to him and all that stuff," said Dufner. "And now I've got one, too.
 "It's pretty neat to come back and win a PGA to be honest with you.
"My name will always be on this trophy and nobody can take that away from me, so it's a great accomplishment for me and I'm really excited about it."
Whether hitting a tee shot into the water, or carding a hole-in-one, Dufner's demeanor rarely changes.
 The biggest victory of Dufner's career did not send him flying into the air like Phil Mickelson after his first Masters win or a violent fist-pump and scream like Tiger Woods.
While there was no hiding Dufner's delight at becoming a major winner, he explained his low-key approach is simply because there is not that much to get excited about.
"Big plays in basketball, home runs in baseball, big plays in football; those will get you pumped up," explained Dufner. "For me, golf is a little bit more boring I think.
"It's pretty matter of fact. I hit it in the fairway or I didn't; I hit the green or I didn't.
"Usually I'm struggling with the putter, so there's not too much to get excited about with that. I made that putt on the first hole, I would say I was pretty flat-lined for most of the day.
"I come across as a pretty cool customer I guess, but there are definitely some nerves out there, especially when you're trying to win a major championship." (Editing by Julian Linden)

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