Lost And Found
Once the No. 1 player in the world but now just struggling to keep his tour card, David Duval's attitude is still better than ever
With little success to speak of in recent years, why does David Duval keep at it? "It's what I do," he said.
To end his first round in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill last month, David Duval pumped his tee shot so far left out of bounds that the ball cleared a cart path, a row of trees and a couple of maintenance sheds. He had no visible reaction, but with those sunglasses as big and black as a total eclipse, who could tell? Duval hit another ball, picked up his tee, swallowed his double bogey and moved on.
He's been doing that a lot lately.
"Really bad shot," Duval said later.
Are there better shots coming? Despite the cold, hard numbers that suggest otherwise, Duval still believes so.
At 37, the former world No. 1 continues to persist through a slump that has covered most of the last decade. He has kept the faith, in himself and in his game, and that ought to be a step in the right direction for someone who has seemed so lost.
‘Which comes first, success or confidence? They are so married, you know. You have to have a little of both. That's all I'm lacking.’And now, with the 10th anniversary of Duval's landmark victory at The Players coming right up, the 854th-ranked player in the world has a short announcement to make: He plans to be back on track, in bounds and over all those problems.
"I expect to," he said. "People kind of identify with struggles, you know, especially if you keep fighting and keep trying."
With nearly $17 million in career earnings on the PGA Tour, it's not as though Duval needs the work, or a bailout check. He remains part of the Nike Golf entourage, a head-to-toe endorsee, from cap to shoes as well as every club in his bag.
But even if Duval insists he's close, he is far removed from his still impressive highlight reel.
He shot a 59 and eagled the last hole to win the Bob Hope, but that's not what makes him feel the most proud.
He won the British Open, but he says that isn't his greatest achievement.
He won nine times in one 16-month span, more than anyone, even anybody named Tiger, but that's not the moment to which he points.
Actually, Duval counts his best day as that windy Sunday 10 years ago at The Players, when he outlasted the field on a fast and tricky TPC Sawgrass and won it . . . with the highest winning score ever on the Stadium Course.
"It was brutal," he said. "The highest score by a winner, I'm pretty proud of that. Just to get around and control the golf ball on a course playing like that was pretty cool."
Why wouldn't being ranked No. 1 have meant the same thing to Duval?
On March 28, 1999, the day he won the Players, Duval assumed the No. 1 ranking. He celebrated it by winning the next week at Atlanta. Then he said he wasn't all that comfortable with being No. 1, a characteristically honest Duval comment that some questioned immediately. So add it all up, and you've got the chain of events that led to Duval being equally known in competing roles: Top Player and Reluctant Superstar.
Hidden behind those standoffish, trademark wraparound shades, Duval has always been a complex character, rife with contradictions.
He played a game full of sizzle and snap and fizz and then stuffed a cork in it with a personality so understated that it was hard to hear.
When Duval said he had read Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" he earned a reputation as an intellectual. It's a tag that is sometimes haphazardly applied in sports, as if someone is an intellectual and a thinker if he can spell the word library. But it fit Duval.
He was tireless in signing autographs for fans and was easily approachable, even though he didn't appear that way.
Blame part of it on his open uneasiness with being No. 1. Even now, he doesn't understand what the big deal was.
"A little bit of psychobabble," he said. "I don't know what comfort means, you know. Roughly a year before that, people said I should have been No. 1. Why wasn't I ranked No. 1? Then I won a tournament and the next day I got up and I was No. 1.
"I don't know what else I did different other than doing what I had been doing for a year-and-a-half. And so something I never understood . . . I told people and I don't think they appreciated it for some reason . . . but I said, 'I don't understand why I wake up today and I'm No. 1 and now I'm supposed to have all the answers. I don't have any different answers than I had yesterday. You liked it then, but now I don't have the right answers.' I'm like, well, I'm not comfortable with that, I guess. I don't get it."
