JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Minutes after his recent PGA Championship victory, Jason Dufner offered perhaps the most profound statement of his career. “It’s definitely going to change my life,” he explained of his first major win, “but I’m determined that it’s not going to change me.”
Playing his first tournament since that win at this week’s Barclays, Dufner was asked whether that’s been the case in the 10 past days.
“I still took the trash out on Tuesday morning and we actually got a new puppy, so I was up at 3:00 in the morning every night taking him out to the bathroom and still going to my favorite breakfast spot in town,” he said. “So not too much has changed in my life. My wife hasn’t treated me any differently and people around me are still treating me the same. So it’s pretty easy when you’ve got good people around you.”
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Dufner maintained that a major component to that is living in the town of Auburn, Ala., where he doesn’t get the superstar treatment.
“The time I’ve had since the victory in Rochester has been kind of a whirlwind there for a couple days,” he said. “But I live in a pretty small town. People are used to me being around, so I didn’t have to deal with too much once I got back to Auburn.”
Recently getting a new phone number hasn’t hurt, either.
“It hasn’t been too bad actually, because I changed my number about three weeks ago, so very limited people have access to my phone number,” he continued. “You know, it’s been good. A lot of support from players, from people that I’ve gotten to know through the years, other athletes, Charles Barkley, Bo Jackson, people like that. When I came out yesterday, a lot of people that I had not seen were congratulatory and people seemed genuinely happy for me, I guess.”
Dufner will tee off at 7:54 a.m. ET on Thursday alongside Kevin Streelman and Jason Day.
