Jason Dufner says he has maybe ‘5 years left’ before retiring from the PGA Tour

BERNARDSTON, Mass -- Jason Dufner, like all American PGA Tour golfers, wants dearly to win the U.S. Open. If the reigning PGA champion is to capture the only grand slam event missing from Phil Mickelson’s resume, he figures he’ll have five more passes at the brass ring.

“I’m not going to be one of those guys who plays on the senior tour; it’s not for me,” Dufner, 37, said during a charity golf event at Crumpin-Fox Club in western Massachusetts on Friday. “[I have] maybe another five years left of doing this [playing professional golf] and then onto something else.”

Dufner finished T4 and T26 in the 2012 and 2013 U.S. Opens at Olympic Club and Merion, respectively, but failed to make the cut at Pinehurst a week ago.

“The national Open,” Dufner said about which tournament he would most like to conquer before he hangs up his spikes. “I always remember thinking the U.S. Open would be a good fit for my game. I still feel that way ... a U.S. Open would be nice, for sure.”

Also nice was Dufner’s ability to help his college friend, former NBA player and Bernardston native, Adam Harrington, convince some 43 golfers to pony up $500 each to play in Friday’s skins game and attend an evening gala and silent auction to help the Jill E. Harrington Hanzalik Foundation. Harrington and his brother, Kevin, established the charitable organization in memory of their late sister, Jill, who passed away at age 33 from undiagnosed colon cancer.

“One of the things that makes what I’ve done [winning last year’s PGA Championship] is [to be able to] use my platform to help people out,” said Dufner, who will forever be known for the “Dufnering” craze that went viral on Twitter last year. “I’ve done everything I can in golf I can think of, so it’s important giving back.”

Adam Harrington knew Dufner vaguely in college, though they ran with different crowds. Harrington joked that hoops players were the cool kids on campus and golf nerds not so much. Still a mutual friend put them back in touch with each other and after following Dufner at last year’s Travelers Championship down the road in Cromwell, Conn., Harrington helped the three-time PGA Tour winner with his own charitable event in March.

Dufner countered with a text, asking “out of the blue” when Harrington planned to host his philanthropic golf tourney. Schedules corresponded and Dufner was available to conduct a clinic before taking to the course with musician Aaron Lewis and the Memphis Grizzlies’ Mike Miller, who demonstrated for the appreciative crowd that he can hammer a ball as well as dunk one.

(Video: Emily Kay)

As to what might be next for the Auburn graduate once he decides to leave competition behind, Dufner said he had a keen desire to design golf courses.

“I’ve been talking to Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore,” Dufner said of the duo that, prior to the back-to-back Opens that the USGA staged on the track, restored Pinehurst to the way Donald Ross originally designed the venue.

For that type of work, Dufner found he was in the right place at the right time on Friday, as he engaged in conversation with Crumpin-Fox architect Roger Rulewich, one of the designers of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail across Alabama. Dufner noted he was a big fan of the RTJ Golf Trail courses, which he played several times during his college years.

It was a busy few days in New England for Dufner, who on Monday was in the middle of the pack with his partner, Hunter Mahan, at the two-day CVS Caremark Charity Classic golf tournament in Rhode Island involving several PGA and LPGA golfers. After festivities at the CVS contest wrap up on Tuesday, Dufner, Mahan, and several other players will head south to Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., to join Tiger Woods at this week’s Quicken Loans National.