The Loop

U.S. Open 2019: Jason Dufner took an alarming amount of time to hit this 18-inch (!!) putt

Jason Dufner's short-putting woes, and putting woes in general, have been on full display this season. They really reared their ugly head at the Wells Fargo Championship, where Dufner could be seen taking what felt like minutes to hit short tap ins while in contention. He wound up finishing in a tie for fourth, his best finish of the season, and had he putted well on the weekend he may have won the tournament instead of Twitter legend Max Homa.

A quick look at his short putting stats reveals that not only does he struggle, he's near the very bottom of the PGA Tour. From three feet he ranks 191st, from four feet 165th. Six feet? 200th. And on and on it goes. The closer he gets to the hole, the more painful it is to watch, something we pointed out after his Sunday 73 in Charlotte.

It's unclear if it's the yips, some other mental issue when he gets over the ball or just poor mechanics. Whatever it is, it's no excuse for how long he took to hit an 18-inch putt on Saturday at Pebble Beach. On the par-3 17th, as Dufner walked up to finish off what appeared to be a tap-in, he instead took over a minute to finally strike. Watch at your own risk:

In fairness, we suppose it's possible that the group ahead was either still on the tee at the 18th or they were just leaving, meaning Dufner may have been afforded the luxury of taking his sweet time. Even if that was the case, this is still an absurd amount of time to clean up a kick-in, one most amateur players could easily have finished up. Dufner marked, got in a nice back crack (don't hate that move, to be honest), patted the green 10 times by my count, leisurely placed his ball down, took a look from behind, went to finish, marked again, patted the green more than 10 times this time (unofficial count), replaced, took another look, set his feet, wiggled his body, finally got set and then took FIVE seconds to finally strike. Got all that? What a wild sequence. Hope you figure it out, Duf man.