Joe Durant earned his first win in three years on the PGA Tour Champions with a little help from a final-round stumble from Stewart Cink.

Durant birdied three of his first nine holes during the final round of the 2024 Cologuard Classic by Exact Sciences before making bogey on No. 10. He bounced back with an eagle, his second in two days, at the par-5 11th before rattling off seven straight pars to hold serve at La Paloma Country Club and cruise home to the title.

Durant won four times on the PGA Tour and now has five wins on the PGA Tour Champions.

“I’ll be 60 in a month or so and you just wonder how many more you have in the tank,” he said. “I was just trying really hard to play well today. When you put yourself in position, you want to play well.”

Durant was nothing if not steady all week, posting scores of 67-66 before closing with a 67. He had 13 birdies and two eagles to go along with seven bogeys over three days.

There have now been 10 different winners in 10 renditions of the tournament.

Cink was making his sixth start on the PGA Tour Champions and before the tournament started, shared recollections of playing La Paloma many years ago.

“It’s been a long time since I was in Tucson. I played in a lot of the [PGA Tour] match plays that were here up at Dove Mountain and I played a tournament at this course when I was about 16 or 17 years old. A long, long time ago, like another life it feels like,” he said Thursday. “But it’s always been a good town and, like I said, desert golf is just a fun way to play.”

And it was fun again. Until it wasn’t.

Cink opened his week with a bogey-free 9-under 62 on Friday. He followed that up with a 2-under 69 Saturday, then made birdie on three of his first five holes Sunday to take a four-shot lead.

But then he started back-pedaling, and after a bogey on No. 10 he was tied for the lead at 12 under with Durant. He would go 6 over on a 10-hole stretch, bottoming out with a triple-bogey 7 on the par-4 13th hole.

Cink said it was the bogey on seventh hole that started the slide.

“Go back to the seventh hole and I can pinpoint, one of the things I pride myself on is never hitting a shot when I’m not ready to go. If I feel any doubts or, you know, something’s not comfortable, then I’m disciplined,” he said a few minutes after signing his scorecard. “On the seventh hole I felt the wind change when I was over the ball and I had just hit it and I didn’t stop, even though I kind of had some doubt. I don’t know why I let that blindside me. I hit a poor shot, ended up making bogey there. It’s not the end of the world, but that kind of blindsided me and I just wasn’t myself the rest of the day. It was kind of a gut punch out there.”

After a bogey on No. 10, he birdied the par-5 11th and parred the 12th. Course corrected? It was not. Two holes later, with a wedge in his hands, he sailed one right, his ball going into a wash that ran down the length of the hole. After stabbing at the ball with his third, he was plugged up against the wall of the wash, had to take a drop before two-putting for a triple.

“That was obviously like a dagger, a big score. I compounded my error there,” he said. “I’ve got some new things going in my golf swing and it was just sort of like a one-two punch, the daggers and then like the difficulty trusting the new stuff and it just, you know, it’s part of golf and it sucks.”

Cink went from a four-shot lead with 13 to go to a 2-over 73 and a tie for seventh.

Golfers on the PGA Tour Champions have the option of using golf carts in competition. In general, few golfers use them but in inclement weather, the tour will make them available. This week, however, all but two golfers in the field hopped in a cart, and did so with their caddies, who were allowed to ride as well. Paul Goydos and Michael Wright were the lone walkers.

La Paloma, which means “the dove” in Spanish, is a Jack Nicklaus design that opened with nine holes on the Ridge course and nine on the Canyon. In 1985, a third nine dubbed the Hill was opened. The desert layout is a challenging walk, with a lot of elevation change and the carts kept the action moving.

The last time on the tour that all players over the course of 54 holes used a cart for reasons other than weather was the 2017 Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship at Bear Mountain Resort in Victoria, British Columbia.

Mario Tiziani was the second alternate this week. Tim O’Neal was first and heard his name called after Rob Labritz withdrew Monday. On Tuesday, Tiziani got in when Brandt Jobe withdrew. On Saturday, Tiziani made a hole-in-one on the par-3 17th, his eighth hole of his second round.

“I used an 8,” he said. “When I hit it I thought it was a little too far. And then I couldn’t see it. It was a blast, I needed it.”

He did have two double bogeys in his round and shot a 1-over 72 but consider Stricker impressed.

“Hole-in-one. He can buy dinner then. He bought last night, he can buy again,” quipped Stricker. “So he teed off on the back first. Wow, birdie, birdie, eagle, hole-in-one. That’s pretty good.”

It’s Tiziani’s first ace in what is now his 37th start on the circuit.

John Daly was also an alternate but he was eighth on that list and only two alternates got in. Daly did injure his hand earlier this season and despite making the trip to the tour’s recent Morroco event, maybe a little extra time off helped.

Bernhard Langer, a tour stalwart and 2020 champion of the event, is out for the year after suffering an Achilles’ tendon tear five weeks ago.

Jim Furyk, who’s lived in Florida for many years but was on the University of Arizona Wildcats team in college in the ’90s, has been battling a balky back and didn’t play this week.

Davis Love III withdrew with a hand injury after the second round. Kirk Triplett was disqualified after the first round for using a non-conforming club.