Overshadowed by 52-year-old Fred Couples, Jason Dufner joins the ’92 Masters winner in the final group Saturday at Augusta National.
Dufner, a co-leader at 5 under through two rounds, did well in the last major championship in Georgia. He came up just shy, however, of winning the PGA Championship when he lost in a playoff to Keegan Bradley.
If the Auburn product goes on to win a green jacket on Sunday, Dufner would add his name to some very rare company in major championship history: joining two players to have lost a playoff in one major, then went on to win the very next major.
In 1941, Vic Ghezzi defeated Byron Nelson in 38 holes in the final match of the PGA Championship. Nelson then won the ’42 Masters, defeating Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff by a shot.
Twenty years later, Jack Nicklaus beat Arnold Palmer for the 1962 U.S. Open. Palmer then went overseas and won the British Open at Royal Troon by six shots.
Dufner would want to avoid being the third member of a different group - losing a playoff in consecutive majors. Tom Watson lost a playoff for the ’78 PGA Championship and ’79 Masters, while Chris DiMarco did the same thing, straddling 2004 and ’05.
