He Has Forgotten How Not to Win

The thing about David Duval was that everybody knew he was an extraordinary golfer. “He can flat play!” a rival golfer told me once after finishing a round with him.

He didn’t have the charisma of Tiger Woods. He didn’t have the awesome, erratic power of John Daly, the pyrotechnics of Greg Norman, the meticulous precision of Nick Faldo.

“I’m kind of boring,” he liked to say to interviewers, deprecatingly.

No, he wasn’t. He had a lot of great players looking over their shoulders for him. He had a lot of courses at his mercy.

He could flat make money. In 1995, his first year on the tour, he made more ($881,436) than any rookie ever had. In his second year, he topped that with $977,079, which added up to more than any two-year player ever made.

He often finished second or third. He made the top 10 14 times in two years. In 49 tournaments.

But he didn’t win. He was Golf’s Bridesmaid. Golf, like life itself, is not fair. A good shot can hit a mound that shouldn’t be there, a putt can clip a spike mark and--voila! Second again.

Players get to know the game for the harlot it is. In fact, when Duval hit a money plateau this year, Bobby Wadkins, Lanny’s brother, who has never won a tournament in 14 years on tour, chortled “You have now passed me, you are now the player who has won the most money without ever winning a tournament!”

Bobby had won $2.59 million in his career without a cup to go with it. Duval topped that figure in July.

Then, a curious thing happened: Duval not only won a tournament, he got in a rut. He couldn’t stop winning. He won three in a row.

As this is written, the official golf season is over. Only the winter’s made-for-television game shows remain. So, Duval’s streak is still alive. He will tee it up at the Mercedes Championships in January with a chance to stretch it.

How big an accomplishment is winning three in a row? Well, it was done only once in the ‘80s (by Tom Watson), only once in the ‘90s (by Nick Price), and you have to go back to the legends of the game when you factor in comparisons. Byron Nelson won 11 in a row in 1945. That’s Joe DiMaggio stuff.

Ben Hogan won six in a row. He also won four in a row once and three in a row four times. Jackie Burke won four in a row in 1952. He and Hogan, who did it in 1953, are the last to have won four in a row.

So, forget Woods for the moment. Duval is the one taking aim at the history books, four or more in a row.

How good is he? Well, Dad was a golf pro (as was Arnold Palmer’s) and is now on the senior tour. So, the rudiments of the game are securely locked in.

He recently turned 26, and golf is a game best played in one’s 30s, so his future looks promising. “I learn something every tournament,” he tells you.

He was 12th on the tour in driving distance, a respectable 24th in greens in regulation (one on par threes, two on par fours, three on par fives). He was second in money won. He was 20th in putting (1.7 putts per hole). And he was third in birdies (behind Woods and Bill Glasson).

As his buddy said, he can flat play.

Duval will be in the Franklin Templeton Shark Shootout this week at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks. Paired with Scott Hoch, he faces the registered giants of the game, Norman, Couples, Calcavecchia, Kite, et al.

Young Duval manages a somewhat sinister presence on the course in wraparound sunglasses. But they are not for effect, they are to keep pollen and blowing sand and wind out of his contact lenses.

He has had to get accustomed to the trappings of fame (no one interviews runners-up unless they are named Tiger or Daly). He gets frustrated because people want some super-dramatic explanation for his turnaround. Simply rapping in a 12-foot putt in a playoff is not theatrical enough for us media hypes. He notes our kind opts for something otherworldly such as a ghostly voice ringing in his ear from some past demigod of the game, a prediction from a psychic, handwriting on a wall, an apparition in his sleep.

“Actually,” he says, “when I was finishing second it was to guys like Norman and Watson and O’Meara. Nothing to be ashamed of. Then, the putts just started dropping.”

He also dropped 46 pounds, which didn’t hurt his swing, and he could see putts without leaning forward. He didn’t go from junk food to tofu, he simply went from weightlifting to wave-surfing and regular exercise.

“My game is consistency,” he insists. “That’s not very exciting but I think I’m a pretty smart player. If I hit a bad shot, I try to minimize its effect. Take a drop [penalty] or hit it back on the fairway and start over. Don’t turn a bogey into an 11 with chancy shots.”

If there’s a cloud in Duval’s future, it’s found in the far reaches of his stats. He is 168th on tour in sand saves (making par out of a green-side trap). Some guys are so good at that they will target green-side traps as preferential even to downhill putts on the green.

Of course, years ago I asked Sam Snead how to handle sand traps. Sam didn’t hesitate. “Don’t get in ‘em,” was his advice.

So Duval plans not to get in ‘em in ’98 too. That way he can become the first player since 1953 to win four tournaments in a row. And join a player by the name of Hogan. Who could flat play too.