It’s do or die for Duval
As I scrolled down the tournament results from last week’s
AT
&
amp;T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, I couldn’t help but notice
one name in particular that finished in 36th place.
It’s do or die for Duval
As I scrolled down the tournament results from last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, I couldn’t help but notice one name in particular that finished in 36th place.
That name was David Duval – the former No. 1 player in the world who, sadly, has descended into the pits of golf annals just as quickly as he rose out of them his rookie year.
In the history of golf, or any sport for that matter, I can think of no other player who has fallen from grace so rapidly.
They say that Duval suffers with temporary bouts of positional vertigo, which would explain a lot since balance is probably the most important thing in repeating a solid golf swing. But even with that said, the guy was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1999. Today he is ranked 358th, and often looks like he would struggle to win a $2 nassau at Bolado Park. Not only that, the vertigo is gone. It has been kept in check with medication. Now if only those high golf scores could be kept in check too so that we could enjoy watching his once stellar golf game propel him to the top of the leader board again. After all, Tiger Woods could use some competition.
Just a few years ago, Duval was the lone guy who was able to keep Woods in check. He’s also the only other player in the last eight years other than Woods to be ranked No. 1. This is also the same guy who shot a 59 to win the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic one year.
Yet since winning the British Open in the summer of 2001, Duval has gone from being Tiger Woods’ biggest threat on the links to falling off the radar screen completely.
Since that July afternoon at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Duval has played in 109 PGA Tour events and missed the cut in 63 of them.
During the same stretch Duval has played in 19 Majors, missing the cut 14 times. And if things don’t make an about-face for Duval, next year he won’t even be allowed to compete on the PGA Tour.
After winning the British Open, Duval was granted a five-year exemption on Tour, which basically means that no matter what he shot or how he finished week in and week out that he had a free pass on Tour for five years. That five-year exemption ran out on Dec. 31 of last year.
This year, Duval is allowed to play courtesy of his decision to use a one-time, one-year special exemption that allows him to compete based on the fact that he is in the Top 25 all-time on the PGA Tour’s money list. And that too will run out on Dec. 31 of this year.
So if you’re a David Duval fan, you’d better root him on hard this year because without a win or a number of top finishes, it will be back to Q-School for the former elite Tour player.
What makes it all hardest to comprehend is seeing just how badly Duval has struggled in recent years. We’re not talking about a round of 67 followed by a 73. We’re talking about 65s followed by 80s.
Sure, other golfers have had slumps, and many players have had bad years, but no one has ever gone from being the No. 1 ranked player in the world to 358th in what seems like the blink of an eye.
And what makes Duval’s downward spiral so hard to watch is that he continues to graciously grind it out week after week. He still practices hard and plays with the same tenacity that made him No. 1, but he can’t seem to string four good rounds together to save his life.
Every week, it seems that he will follow a round of 65 or 66 with a 75 or 78. And what’s most frustrating is that obviously, if you can break 70 on a PGA Tour layout, you can play this game. And so can David Duval for brief periods of time. He just can’t seem to do so consistently anymore. And that’s sad for the game.
Good luck, Dave. I’ll be rooting for you.
