Dufner will seek his fourth career PGA Tour victory and first since the 2013 PGA Championship.
Advertisement
Dufner hit the front of the green with his second shot and two-putted for par, holing a 5-footer after Lingmerth missed his par try from 22 feet.
On a third straight day of ideal conditions, which produced a handful of outrageous scoring barrages, Dufner birdied seven times on his back nine for a 29 at La Quinta Country Club on Saturday and finished with an 8-under-par 64.
Dufner is seeking his first victory since the 2013 PGA Championship.
For the final round on the host Stadium Course, Dufner is paired with Lovemark, and they both have the tournament low there this week with 65s. “I’m excited to accomplish one of my goals this early in the year, and I’m excited to keep playing well”. “There’s a little bit of room to play off the tee, but if you get off the path a little bit, you can get into some trouble”.
“A lot of the iron shots are 12, 15 feet off. I know when I get it right I’ll have a lot more tap-in birdies in the round”. He opened with a 64 on Thursday on the Nicklaus Tournament Course for a share of the lead and had a 65 on Friday on the Stadium Course to take a one-shot advantage.
Following his round, Mickelson joined PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem and various dignitaries in honoring wounded heroes and military families at a military appreciation ceremony on the 18th green of the TPC Stadium Course as part of the tournament’s Patriot Day. “Then I thought it was going to sneak in”.
The 38-year-old Dufner is at 23-under-par 193 for the tournament, its second-best 54-hole score since it was reduced to 72 holes in 2012.
Said Lahiri, “I left a lot of putts out there and that was disappointing”.
“I got off to two bad starts over the weekend”.
Phil Mickelson, Kevin Na and Andrew Loupe were all tied in third, four shots adrift of the top two on 21 under.
Mickelson, teeing it up for the first time since September previous year, said he was still not 100 percent confident in his game.
The result was disappointing for Lingmerth, but the 28-year-old Swede likely just secured his spot in the Olympics alongside Henrik Stenson. In the last two seasons he’s struggled, particularly with his putting and has been 90th and 88th in the FedEx Cup in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
“It was probably like one in 50 million that the ball ends up there”, he said.
Advertisement
“Neither me or anybody I’ve ever played with has ever hit a ball in the water at 17”. Next week, Lefty will tee it up at the Northern Trust Open from Torrey Pines in his home town of San Diego.
