Joel Dahmen probably wanted to be anywhere else, and yet, there he was, standing in front of a microphone in another country, having just blown a great chance to win for the second time on the PGA Tour.
“I think I’m in a little bit of shock, honestly,” Dahmen said not long after exiting the scoring area Sunday afternoon at Puntacana Resort, where Dahmen bogeyed four of his last six holes and fell a shot shy of his second victory at the Corales Puntacana Championship.
“It’s not how you win a golf tournament, I’ll tell you that. I don’t deserve to win it.”
Dahmen reached 16 under through 36 holes and was 17 under through 11 holes of his final round before his two-shot advantage imploded in strong winds.
Even after a three-putt bogey at the par-4 13th hole, Dahmen still led with three holes to play. But he missed the green at the par-4 16th with a nervy, pull-hooked 8-iron and failed to get up and down. Then at the par-3 17th, he lipped out a 1-foot par save, of which Dahmen later admitted, “Unfortunately, I’m prone to that at times.”
Finally, with Garrick Higgo in the house at 14 under, Dahmen needed to convert an 8-foot par putt to force extra holes, but he missed that, too.
“All of a sudden, I wake up and I lost the golf tournament,” said Dahmen, who closed in 4-over 76 to finish T-2 with Alejandro Tosti, Keith Mitchell, Jeremy Paul and Michael Thorbjornsen, the latter of whom also missed a short par putt at the last.
“When you’re trying to win a golf tournament, it does weird things to you, and I did not handle it well today,” Dahmen added.
Dahmen admitted to being nervous, but he also felt like he handled those nerves well, at least mentally. He was in a good head space, cool and calm; his body and golf swing just didn’t cooperate.
That didn’t make the loss any easier, though.
“This one could take a while to get over,” Dahmen continued. “It’s one of those things, you learn more in defeat unfortunately. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet…”
He went on to talk about next week’s Zurich Classic in New Orleans, where he’ll team with buddy Harry Higgs. It will be good, Dahmen says, to have someone else to lean on. He was excited for his wife, Lona, to be flying in for the week, too.
Then he got back to this one.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dahmen continued, “this one’s going to sting for a while.”
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