World Beater

The best golfer in the world is friendly to fans, approachable, gracious to the media and is so outgoing that he wears his emotions right there on the sleeve of his Tommy Hilfiger shirt.

The best golfer in the world has days as bad as a double bogey, warily sizes up people behind sunglasses as big and black as an eclipse, seems about as approachable as a dark alley and keeps mainly to himself.

That’s David Duval, professional golf’s newest rage, the reigning Mr. 59 who has somehow managed to earn this billing of, well, Reluctant Superstar, or something. He’s already 27 and has been around full time for four years, but we probably know more about the whiskers on Tiger Woods’ caddie than anything about Duval.

How in the name of birdie has this happened? Maybe it’s because Duval plays a game full of sizzle and snap and fizz and then stuffs a cork in the whole thing with a personality that’s so understated you can barely hear it.

Not that any of this is bad, mind you. It’s just that we tend to like our sports superstars to walk on the showy side of the street. If they don’t, we don’t get it. We feel deprived. (What, no Dirty Bird?)

Actually, we’re starting to think Duval likes it this way.

For example, here are some of Duval’s answers to questions at his most recent news conference, at Pebble Beach.

Question: Why are you playing so well at the beginning of this year?

Answer: Hard work the last 15 years, you know?

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Q: After the Mercedes, one of the golf magazines quoted a poll that said you didn’t talk to your partner for 16 holes.

A: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

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Q: After shooting a 59, how do you get refocused on another tournament?

A: Well, 74 in the first round at Phoenix helps.

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Q: You shot a 59 and people would like to see some emotion so they can gain an attachment to you.

A: You can’t be something you’re not.

Well, here’s to you, David Duval, the best golfer in the world who prefers to be himself, who doesn’t pretend to be something he is not, who would rather read a book than his own press clippings, who can shoot a record-tying 59 on the last day to win a tournament and then seem so coolly unemotional about it that frost forms on his sunglasses.

In this case, appearances are either revealing or deceiving. Duval used to wear a goatee, which either made him look like the hippest golfer around or a guy who wanted to jack your car. Not that it mattered to Duval how he appeared to the masses.

“I’m not losing any sleep,” he said. “There is nothing I can really do about it. I think I’m very approachable. I think I’m as accommodating as anybody in the game for autographs. I don’t know what else I can do.”

If you want to know what the other players think about Duval, they clearly don’t give a darn about his shades or his chew or that he might actually be an intellectual because he likes to read books (gasp!). Most players feel the same way about Duval as Phil Mickelson does.

“Amazing,” Mickelson said. “Just incredible. Amazing.”

Totally. When the Nissan Open begins Thursday at Riviera Country Club, the best player in the world, with or without sunglasses, will be right there, walking slowly between the eucalyptus trees, trying once again to see if the sheer brilliance of his game alone will be enough to put his stamp on professional golf.

So far, he has been King David. Duval won the first two tournaments he played--the Mercedes Championships at Kapalua in Maui and the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at La Quinta--with a combined 52 under par.

Duval won the Mercedes going away, his nine-shot margin the best in nearly two years. Then, at the Hope, Duval came from behind to beat Steve Pate by one shot with a 13-under 59 on the last day.

“I guess you could say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Pate said in lament.

Funny, but that has really been a shared experience among PGA Tour players the last 16 months or so, when Duval has been the dominant player in the world.

He has won nine times since October 1997. No one else has won more than twice in the same period.

He led the 1998 PGA Tour in prize money with nearly $2.6 million and he’s leading it again this year with $1.092 million in only four tournaments.

He has finished in the top 10 in tournaments 17 times in his last 30 events. Tiger Woods is next with 16 in the same span, and Jim Furyk has 15.

And so on. Duval’s ascent to the top of the game might appear whiplash-inducing for its speed, but that’s not the case. Duval was regarded as sort of an underachiever for a while, despite the degree of success he did achieve.

Duval’s sin was that he didn’t win. In his first two years on the tour, Duval held seven 54-hole leads and didn’t win once. Of course, he did finish No. 11 on the money list in his rookie year of 1995, then was No. 10 in 1996, and No. 2 in 1997.

His perceived lack of success, at least in the victory department, is Duval’s biggest pet peeve. He grew so weary of answering questions about how he finally started winning that his pat answer became nearly shrill in its brevity--putts started going in.

But with 34 top-10s in his first four years, it was always clear to many that Duval would break through.

“Anyone who knows the game, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t,” Peter Jacobsen said. “But there was never any question that it was only a matter of time for David Duval.”

Duval’s time actually began when he was learning the game from his father, Bob, in Jacksonville, Fla. Bob Duval was a teaching pro for years and David tagged along, soaking up as much information as he could. Now a Senior PGA Tour player, the elder Duval is well aware that his son has developed into a very special player.

“No one can maintain his pace,” Bob Duval said. “Can he win every tournament? No, he can’t. But I think he’s going to maintain that level of intensity and not let a lot of things interfere with him.”

Now that Duval has made a reputation for himself as a closer, he’s looked at like some sort of brooding gunslinger, especially because of those extra-dark wraparound shades.

The reason he wears the sunglasses is because he is sensitive to light. Nothing more. For the record, Duval said the sunglasses are not prescription, just way dark.

“It’s a curved plastic lens and somebody a lot smarter than me figured out how to make it distortion free,” he said. “You can curve a glass lens and not get distortion, but not plastic.”

Makes sense, all right. The only thing plastic about Duval is his eyewear. When he won the Mercedes Championships, he won a car and gave it to his girlfriend, which is not only a nice thing to do, but also a smart thing to do.

He’s a real reader too. Duval earned a reputation as an intellectual because he once admitted that he had read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” a circumstance that is regarded as unusual in sports, basically because it occurs about about as often as Dennis Rodman listens to Bartok.

Anyway, Duval’s big news this week--besides coming down after his skiing trip to Sun Valley--is that the new Elmore Leonard novel is out. It promises to be fun reading, a breeze, a stroll down a freshly mowed fairway. When he isn’t firing irons at the flagsticks, he’ll be turning pages.

Yes, it’s sure a great life for golf’s greatest player right now, someone who is enjoying being exactly who he is and not who he isn’t. If that’s having a personality problem, then so be it. See you at the awards ceremony.

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In the Groove

David Duval, who has won two of the four tournaments he has entered this year, has been the hottest player in golf since winning his first tournament in 1997. Since that breakthrough, he has won nine of his last 30 tournaments, the best percentage in the 1990s for players who won five or m o re tournaments in a two-year stretch:

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Golfer Years Events Won Entered Pct. Won David Duval Oct. 1997-Feb. 99 9 30 30.0% Nick Price Mar. 1993-Sept. 94 9 37 24.3% Tiger Woods Oct. 1996-July 97 6 26 23.1% Nick Price Aug. 1992-June 93 6 32 18.8% Fred Couples June 1991-April 92 5 30 16.7% Phil Mickelson Jan. 1996-Aug. 97 6 42 14.3% Davis Love III March 1992-Oct. 93 5 47 10.6%

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Nissan Open

WHERE: Riviera CC

WHEN: Thursday-Sunday

COVERAGE: Daly, Lehman withdraw. Page 7