The PGA Tour’s 10 Biggest Disappointments of 2021/22
By Bill Felber
6. Jason Dufner
How much worse? (0.823 strokes)
Dufner is the second of three former Major Champions who made this unenviable list in 2021-22. His scoring average fell from 71.253 to 72.076. That was the eighth worst scoring average for any player completing enough rounds to qualify.
Dufner made 22 starts but only six cuts, none of them landing him inside the top 25. He earned just $118,000 – his worst season of 17 as a full-time pro – and never came close to making the FedEx Cup top 125.
In short, Dufner, who is 45, may be able to start practicing for the Senior Tour.
Here’s the data on Dufner.
2020-21 2021-22 Change
Off The Tee 0.165 -0.287 -0.452
Approaches 0.197 -0.085 -0.282
Around the Green 0.032 -0.014 -0.046
Putting -0.392 -0.701 -0.309
As the chart shows, both Dufner’s strengths and weaknesses declined during 2021-22. In fact, all three of his nominal assets became liabilities.
He went from modestly positive to significantly negative off the tee, from positive to modestly negative in his approaches, and from being a bad putter to being one of the PGA Tour’s worst. In fact, only two Tour regulars ran up worse putting numbers than Dufner’s -0.701 strokes gained in 2022.
For the 2013 PGA Champion, then, there was no good news to be gleaned in 2022…unless you count getting one year closer to the Senior Tour.