By John Strege
The putter can be a lethal weapon in golf, and Joe Durant used his expertly over the weekend in ending a long victory drought while also slaying a legend who nonetheless effectively reminded us of why he has become legendary.

Durant’s one-stroke victory over World Golf Hall of Fame Bernhard Langer in the Ally Challenge at Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc, Mich., on Sunday was the fourth of his PGA Tour Champions career, but first in more than three years, surprising even himself.

“The way I played this year, no,” he said, when asked whether he expected to win.

But he capped a brilliant putting tournament by holing a five-foot bogey putt on the 18th hole for the victory. He finished with a four-under par 68 that was good enough to fend of a challenge from Langer, who two days earlier remarkably had shot his age, 64.

“I putted brilliantly,” Durant said, while noting that until this week it had been his putting that kept him not only from winning, but also from contending. Durant, 57, had not had a top 10 since November of 2019, encompassing 25 starts without playing himself into contention on Sunday. He put that dismal stretch behind him with a 54-hole score of 17-under par 199.

Langer, meanwhile, closed with a two-under 70 for a second-place finish that still propelled him past Jim Furyk in the Charles Schwab Cup standings.

Durant has been leaning on another legend of sorts, Brad Faxon, a putting maestro, for help on the missing link from an otherwise well-rounded game. And it came through in the clutch on the last hole. He took a two-shot lead into 18, then hit his drive so far off line it wound up on an adjacent fairway.

“I hadn’t been in that position in quite a while, and I had a lot of things that shouldn’t have been in in my brain that were in my brain,” he said. “I’m a good driver of the ball, too, but I just stepped up and I didn’t have a clear picture of the shot I wanted to hit and I just completely flared it. I was very fortunate to be in the other fairway, but still had to get the second shot over the trees, but clipped a tree. I actually had the perfect yardage for me [for his third shot], 60 yards, and I just dumped that one. That showed how nervous I was.”

Putting for par from off the green, Durant ran it five feet past the hole. But this time the putter did not let him down and he was a victor for the first time since February, 2018.

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That said, in his transition to senior golf, finishing strong when the stakes are highest had been something the 54-year-old has struggled to show. At least until Sunday at the Regions Tradition, when Jimenez nearly frittered away another 54-hole lead in a PGA Tour Champions major, only to wrestle it back on the back nine and walk off happily soaked in champagne.

With a closing two-under 70 at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., including birdies on two of his final three holes, Jimenez beat Steve Stricker, Joe Durant and Gene Sauers by three strokes, finishing with a 19-under 269, a tournament record in relation to par.

This was the third time Jimenez held or shared the 54-hole lead in a senior major championship. But in his two previous tries, he failed to come through with a victory (T-3 at the 2016 Senior Open Championship and T-2 at the 2016 U.S. Senior Open). In all, Jimenez had posted six top-five finishes in the biggest senior events but had no brass rings to show for it.

“Yeah, it’s time, it’s time,” Jimenez said. “I’ve been playing well all of the years I’ve been here on the Champions.”

This time around, he took a three-stroke lead into Sunday after rounds of 64-69-66, matching the tournament’s 54-hole record (set by Gil Morgan in 1997) with a 17-under 199. While itching to finally break through, Jimenez wasn’t going to let the circumstances change his usual evening routine.

“I think I’m going to do exactly the same thing I did [Friday] night,” he said on Saturday night. “I’m going to have a margarita as an aperitif, and then I’m going to have a nice bottle of Rioja [wine] and smoke a big fat cigar.”

However, Jimenez saw his lead disappear after a bogey on the 10th hole, his second of the round, left him just even par on the day. While a birdie on the par-5 13th gave him the lead alone again, a bogey on the par-5 15th hole left him in a three-way tie for the lead with Stricker and Durant.

To his credit, Jimenez settled down. On the 16th hole, he stood over a 25-foot birdie putt while Stricker eyed a 15-footer. Jimenez saw his drop while, Stricker failed to convert. Advantage the most interesting man in golf.

When Stricker bunkered his tee shot on the par-3 17th, leading to a bogey, Jimenez had a two-stroke advantage after his two-putt par heading to the par-5 18th. And when Jimenez hit the green in two on the home hole, his two-putt for birdie was academic.

“I started a little excited, but I got myself back into the game,” Jimenez said afterward, having become the first Spaniard to win a PGA Tour Champions major.

While Stricker was disappointed with the runner-up finish following a closing 70—he has still yet to shoot a round over par on the PGA Tour Champions—he proudly has emerged as a dominant force on the PGA Tour Champions … when he chooses to play. In his four previous senior starts in 2018, Stricker had two wins, and he has now posted top-five finishes in nine of his 11 career starts on the 50-and-older circuit. However, he continues to play regularly on the PGA Tour, limiting the 51-year-old’s appearances with his contemporaries.

Stricker, though, is in the field again next week at the Senior PGA Championship, the second of five majors on the PGA Tour Champions, and earlier this week he filed his entry to play in this summer’s U.S. Senior Open.

Bernhard Langer was trying to become the first player to win the Tradition three straight years, but finished in 11th place, six strokes back.

So how might Jimenez celebrate?

“Yeah, we’re going to have a big party,” said Jimenez, one he promised would involve plenty of champagne.

The rest? Well, he’ll leave that to the imagination.

The post Miguel Angel Jimenez is ready to celebrate as only he knows how after claiming his first senior major appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
Victory continues to elude Steve Stricker on the PGA Tour Champions, but it eluded him on this Sunday when Joe Durant expertly kept him from it.

Durant played the final six holes on the Talon Course at TwinEagles Golf Club in four-under par to win the Chubb Classic in Naples, Fla.

He shot a five-under par 67 to win by four, though he came to the par-4 18th hole leading Stricker by a shot. Durant, however, hit his second shot to 10 feet of the hole. Stricker followed by hitting his second shot into a hazard right of the green. Durant made his birdie putt and Stricker wound up with a double bogey to tie Billy Mayfair, Lee Janzen, David Toms and Tim Petrovic for second.   “I couldn’t have been more happy with my second shot at 18,” Durant said. “It was one of the best iron shots I’ve hit under pressure in a long time.”

Durant, 53, hit several quality shots under pressure in winning for the third time on the PGA Tour Champions. He trailed Stricker by one when arrived at the par-5 13th hole. He hit a perfect second shot to set up an eagle putt that he made, while Stricker missed the green and made a par, allowing Durant to go one up.

“I felt like if I could make the three there I had a shot,” Durant said. “I was just so nervous starting today and it showed on the first few holes. I missed some short putts. My goal was just to hang in there. If you can stay around it you never know what could happen the last three or four holes. That’s all I was trying to do.”

Durant, who began the final round with a one-stroke lead, followed with a birdie on 14 to go two up, but surrendered the lead on 16 when he made bogey and Stricker made birdie. At the par-5 17th hole, he regained the lead by hitting a perfect 3-wood to the fringe, setting up a birdie, then hit a perfect approach at 18.

“I very was fortunate I put a new 3-wood in my bag this week,” he said. “It doesn’t have any left in it typically, so I knew the water [on the left] was probably out of play. Right wasn’t very good, but I hit a good shot there [at 17].

Stricker, who will turn 51 on Friday, was making his season debut on the PGA Tour Champions, though he had played twice on the PGA Tour and had played reasonably well ,tying for 31st at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and tying for 26th in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

“I did a lot of good things today and didn’t get the ball in the hole like I did yesterday,” he said. “I felt like I hit a lot of putts that were just on the edge. That’s the nature of the game sometimes. But I hung in there good, drove the ball well, and gave myself a lot of opportunities. Joe hit some great shots when he had to, put the pressure on all of us when it mattered most, and he started holing some putts on the backside, too. Some that he wasn’t holing early on, he started to make, and he played great.”

It was Stricker’s seventh senior start since turning 50 and he has yet to win, despite finishing in the top three in five of them.

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