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It was a moment of deep appreciation and satisfaction.

Durant has experienced the highest of highs in professional golf — and the lowest of lows.

The triumph at Tucson’s PGA Tour Champions event was Durant’s fifth on pro golf’s senior circuit and his first since 2020. He won four times on the PGA Tour, including a record-setting performance in 2001 that likely never will be topped.

A decade earlier, Durant quit golf altogether.

“I was beating myself up,” said Durant, who will try to defend his title at this year’s Cologuard Classic, which runs Friday-Sunday at La Paloma Country Club. “I hated it.”

Durant, 27 at the time, took a job at Edwin Watts Golf, working at a warehouse. His salary was $450 per week, according to a of Durant.

“I was filling orders, stacking boxes, doing whatever they asked me to do,” Durant said. “I was the warehouse gopher, basically.”

Doesn’t sound like fun, does it? Well, it turned out to be “the best thing I could have done,” Durant said.

He needed some perspective. He needed to improve his attitude. His wife, Tracey, a former All-American golfer at Troy (Alabama), wouldn’t let him attempt a comeback if he didn’t address the latter.

“You’re not going to play with the attitude you had before,” Tracey told Joe. “You’re gonna have to change your tune.”

“And I did,” Durant said. “I can’t say that I’ve always had a positive attitude, but I sort of look at it different. For the most part, I’m a pretty positive person.”

After about three months at the warehouse, Durant resumed his golfing career. He won for the first time on the Korn Ferry Tour (known as the Nike Tour back then) in 1996. He notched his first PGA Tour victory in 1998 at the Western Open. Then, in 2001, he briefly ascended to the apex of the sport.

Durant won that year’s Bob Hope Chrysler Classic with a score of 36 under par. It’s the lowest score ever for a 90-hole event. As the PGA Tour no longer holds 90-hole events, it’s a record that probably will last forever.

“The funny thing about that is, my rookie year on tour, Tom Kite shot 35 under at the Hope and I shot about 8 over,” Durant said. “I’m thinking, ‘How in the world do you shoot 35 under? I’ll never be able to do anything like that.’ So I almost contemplated not playing that tournament because the scoring was so low. And I ended up with the record.”

After taking a week off, Durant won again, this time at the . After starting the season outside the top 200 in the World Golf Ranking, Durant sat atop the PGA Tour money list.

“Golf seemed very easy during that stretch,” Durant said. “It’s typically not that way. It’s the most maddening game, because you think one minute you’ve got it figured out, and then a week later, you don’t know what the heck you’re doing.

“The hole just looked like a washtub. You’re hitting greens and making putts, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You have to roll with it, though. Golf is a very roller-coaster-type sport. If you play it long enough, and you have a career long enough, you’re gonna go through some pretty dark periods — and you’re gonna have, hopefully, some really euphoric periods, too.”

Durant finished the 2001 season with six top-10 finishes and nine top-25s. He also missed the cut in 11 of 25 events.

Durant won one more time on the PGA Tour, in 2006. He earned more than $14 million from 1993-2014. He never contended in a major; his best finish was a tie for 18th at the 2007 PGA Championship.

Overall, though, not a bad way to earn a living. That was one of the lessons Durant learned when he stepped away from the game, a period that also included an unsuccessful attempt to sell insurance.

“Obviously this is your livelihood, and you’re trying to make a living doing it, but oh my gosh, what an office,” Durant said while looking out at the desert landscape at La Paloma. “When you come to a tournament like this, for example, and you see what people are going through, it’s like, ‘Are you kidding yourself?’ If you’re gonna get on the golf course and bitch about what you’re doing, you need to have a serious talk with yourself, because we’re very blessed.”

Durant will turn 62 in April. He has come to realize that “golf’s not life or death.” But at the Cologuard Classic, it kinda is.

The overarching purpose of the tournament is to raise awareness of colorectal cancer. Every participant plays for someone who’s been impacted.

In the final round last year, Amanda Meckstroth, a Stage 4 colorectal cancer patient, walked with Durant’s group. Her bravery left him in awe.

Durant’s family has been affected by cancer, as most have. In August 2023, his nephew, Lee Stewart, died after a yearlong bout with pancreatic cancer. He was about five years younger than Durant, who considered Stewart his “little brother.”

Durant is the youngest of six siblings. Stewart helped take care of Durant’s mother toward the end of her life.

“He was always there to help out with stuff,” Durant said. “He was the most generous person I’ve ever known.”

A year after his comeback victory, Durant reflected on a week that meant so much to so many.

“We’ve all been impacted by cancer; our families have been impacted by it,” Durant said. “So to pull out a win and to look up into the heavens ... I felt like (Stewart) was around me that day. And to see all the people behind me that were here either in memory of people who had passed away from colon cancer, or were battling it, was just emotional.”

Out of the darkness comes the euphoria.