Jason Dufner is on fire at the Memorial Tournament

Jason Dufner is lighting it up at the Memorial Tournament.

Jason Dufner has only won one tournament on the PGA TOUR since his breakthrough win at the PGA Championship in 2013 — he last won in January 2016 at the CareerBuilder Challenge — but he’s in complete control at the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village.

Dufner, who was once ranked as high as No. 8 in the Official World Golf Ranking and now sits at No. 65, hasn’t quite been able to find the winner’s circle in a while but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been playing solid golf. In the 13 events he’s played in 2017, he’s missed just two cuts and has finished in the top 25 on eight occasions, his best result being a T-11 at both the Valspar Championship and the RBC Heritage.

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He missed the cut at the Dean & Deluca Invitational last week at Colonial but that doesn’t seem to be bothering him one bit. Dufner opened the Memorial with a near-perfect round of golf on Thursday. Sitting at 8-under through 17 holes with six birdies, an eagle and no bogeys, he found the greenside bunker on the 484-yard, par-4 18th and walked away with his only dropped shot of the day, settling for a 65 and a share of the Day 1 lead with 2015 Memorial champ David Lingmerth.

Dufner started his second round on the back nine on Friday morning and continued to play well. After making par on the first four holes, he made back-to-back birdies on 14 and 15 and parred 16 and 17, which once again brought him to the 18th hole with no bogeys. Yes, it was only his ninth hole of the day but I’m trying to build a little drama here. After a perfect drive, Dufner’s 176-yard second shot nearly went long and he was perhaps looking at having to scramble for a par. But it didn’t quite play out that way.

The eagle gave him a four-under 32 on his first nine to put him at 11-under for the tournament and following pars at the first four holes of the front nine, he reeled off birdies at 5, 6 and 7 and parred the final two holes for a second consecutive 65, at the time putting him eight shots clear of the field at 14-under, which just happens to be the 36-hole scoring record at the Memorial. Jason Dufner is in for a fun weekend.

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