Mystery man of U.S. Open:
David Duval, in contention
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- It was early Sunday evening, just about the time the U.S. Open champion is getting his trophy and making his acceptance speech. But in this one, this most weather-fragmented of U.S. Opens, this was just the start of the final round, and so the fans had been hanging around since the third round finished some time before and waited to see the start of the fourth just as dusk began to gather, somewhere around 7:30. A player in a light blue golf shirt stepped out on the first tee, loosened up with a swing, then stepped up to the ball. But who was he? He looked vaguely familiar – the shape of the face, the way the chin swept in, the pronounced shoulderliness of him. Something was missing. The sunglasses. The wraparound sunglasses. You could tell by pale white skin around his eyes. As though he’d fallen asleep on a tanning bed. He was no more out in the sun without his sunglasses than Dracula was out at night without his cape.
Duval. Of course, David Duval. The man who lived behind sunglasses. They shielded him from the sun, and could it be they also shielded him from the world?
Whatever the case, he was a welcome sight to the world of golf. In golf time, it had been ages since anyone saw him in contention in golf. He was almost a biblical prodigal son in his absence, but without the moral overtones. He was back. At least back in contention.
“Well, I’m excited to go play some more,” he’d said, after finishing the third round. These were alien scores to him, these past years: 67-70-70, 3 under 207, tied for third, just five off the lead. In an earlier time, he lived in that territory.
But so cautious, so halting. There was a time he walked with Tiger Woods. But how does he express it?
“Well,” he said, “I’d like to think I enjoyed it immensely, you know – eight, 10 years ago, when I was on top of the world.”
This was a voice from somewhere deep. He’d like to think that he’d enjoyed it?
“But with a life that’s a little more complete, I probably honestly enjoy it more now,” he said. He was speaking of marriage and family.
“I have no less desire at this point than I did back then,” he said. “However, I probably feel like I don’t simply do it for myself anymore. And you know, that’s a nice feeling.”
Strange, the use of the word “probably” in a perfectly natural setting in which certainty would reside. As though he were creeping up on a good and rich feeling but was afraid to trust it.
What years those were. He had 13 victories in just five years – three in 1997, four in ’98, four in ’99, one in 2000, and one in 2001, and that the British Open, no less. And then he said, in an odd way – is that all there is? Had the fire gone out? Or worse, had ennui set in?
Duval remained the mystery of pro golf. Not only had he not won since that 2001 British Open, he hadn’t done much of anything till now. He picked his spots to play, enter a tournament, miss the cut, go home. It seemed despair had set in. In 2007, he entered just seven tournaments, had no top-10 finishes, and made just $71,945.
“I just knew that I had developed some very bad swing problems, and through it, lost all confidence,” Duval said. “I believed I could get it back. I knew the process was going to take a long time and it would take a lot of work. But you know, I’m just not a quitter.”
Some memories are a mix of pride and pain. Like the humiliation of the 2004 U.S. Open.
“Kind of like when I played at Shinnecock and shot a couple rounds in the 80s,” Duval said. “I’m damn sure not going to quit at that point. I don’t remember what my score was – maybe 84, 85 at Augusta – but I wasn’t going to quit. My older boys had come with me. So you have a rough day and quit and pack up and go home? That’s not what I think how it should be, and I don’t think that’s an example to set.”
Duval will go back out onto the shaggy, sodden stretches of Bethpage Black Monday morning. He played two holes before darkness shut down play Sunday. He bogeyed the first, parred the second, and is tied for third at 2 under.
Duval will be in contention for the U.S. Open – in contention for anything – for the first time in a lifetime, it seems. He will be back behind the sunglasses, and whatever he shoots, he’ll be looking a lot more like his old self.
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