Duval Is Showing Shades of Greatness

So what in the world is golf going to do with David Duval? Make par lower for him? Take away his shades? Make him play with a bigger golf ball? Put old car tires on the greens?

Something has to give, because right now, Duval is the best player in the world and showing no signs of letting up. After his nine-shot runaway victory at last week’s Mercedes Championships at Kapalua, Hawaii, Duval once again proved he is the main man to beat every week.

In his last 27 tournaments, he has won eight times and made a very nice $4.3 million. That’s an average of $160,020 every time he tees it up.

The good news for the rest of the players on the PGA Tour is that Duval took this week off to go skiing. But he’s going to be back at it next week in the desert in the $3-million Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, where there promises to be no snow. Maybe he should pack his skis, because winning has been as easy for him as skiing downhill.

Duval’s closing five-under-par 68 at Kapalua was his seventh consecutive round in the 60s and helped him set a tournament record. And his nine-shot margin was the biggest by a winner since Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters by 12.

Woods said he’s impressed.

“The way he’s going, that’s great golf,” Woods said. “What you want to do out here is to prove you’re better than any other player. David has been doing that.”

Woods has a great deal of company in that assessment. For instance, Tom Watson compared Duval, 27, to the 23-year-old Woods.

“He’s right up there with Tiger,” Watson said. “Right now, he has surpassed Tiger.”

Watson knows something about streaking. He won eight times in a 12-month period with victories in the 1979 and 1980 Byron Nelson tournaments serving as bookends.

“The way it’s going for him was the same for me,” Watson said. “Winning begets winning. You feel you can win every time you play-- not that you’re going to win, but that you can be around the lead or in the lead all the time.”

Mark O’Meara said there’s no question that Duval is a great player.

“I’ve played with him when he’s played at his best, and he’s just coming into his own,” O’Meara said. “It’s been phenomenal, no question about it. It wouldn’t faze me at all if he went on to win five or six tournaments this year. He’s got the ability to do it.”

And Duval is starting to make some big waves. In the world rankings, Duval is No. 3 behind Woods and O’Meara.

Meanwhile, there is the personality thing. While Woods is flashy and O’Meara represents golf’s ultimate plugger, Duval is . . . what, the guy in the shades? Of course, Duval is much more than that, even if he doesn’t sound much like it.

“I am tickled,” he said.

That’s really nice, David. See you in the desert.

CAR WARS

From the Now-It-Can-Be-Told Department: On Saturday night, before the last round at the Mercedes, Fred Funk got a ride in Duval’s courtesy car and messed up the seats, the mirrors and turned the wipers on as a joke to see if it would distract him.

Obviously, it was a failure.

“I should have flattened the tires,” Funk said. “If it was his car, I would have.”

On the 17th green Sunday, Funk asked Duval how the car was.

“Didn’t faze him,” Funk said. “You can’t [tick] the guy off.”

UH, IS IT APPLAUSE?

All right, what do Michael Douglas, Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone and Sean Connery have in common with Kevin Costner, Jack Nicholson, Samuel L. Jackson and Andy Garcia?

If you said golf, admit yourself free the next time you go to a movie. Douglas and noted golf television guru Terry Jastrow have cooked up a new celebrity golf event starring all of these swingers that’s going to be taped during Academy Awards week and shown the Sunday of the Masters on ABC.

The nine-hole event, which is expected to raise some $600,000 for the Motion Picture & Television Fund, will be taped at Ocean Trails, a new Pete Dye course in Palos Verdes that has a view of the Pacific Ocean from all 18 holes.

But it’s the view on the course that may make this celebrity event something special.

“Celebrity golf has always done very well--if it’s quality celebrity golf,” Jastrow said. “We’d like this event to harken back to the old Crosby [tournament] when the Crosby was the Crosby and not just the world’s greatest corporate outing.”

Douglas, a member of the board of directors of the Motion Picture & Television Fund, was responsible for lining up the talent. A 17-handicapper, Douglas said he often plays with Nicholson and Jackson, but they don’t waste their time talking about the movie business.

“We talk about golf,” Douglas said. “We share an addiction. When we play, it’s just a big rush. It’s like playing hooky from school.”

OR VALLEY OF THE PARS

Out: The Los Angeles Women’s Championship.

In: The Valley of the Stars Championship.

Valley of the what?

The semi-struggling three-year-old LPGA event at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale got a name make-over this week, basically because tournament owners AJ Sports brought on a San Fernando Valley business group called Economic Alliance to help market and promote the $650,000 tournament.

Maybe the new name will help the event, which has been less than a financial success so far. Dale Eggeling is the defending champion in the tournament, which will be played Feb. 12-14.

SEVE, TIM MAKE UP?

Last year, Seve Ballesteros got mad at PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem when Ballesteros wasn’t invited to play in the Players Championship in March. In fact, Ballesteros hasn’t played the tournament in four years.

Anyway, Ballesteros is in now . . . and is it only a coincidence that he is being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame about the same time and Finchem couldn’t ignore him any longer?

You be the judge. Consider the complete text of Finchem’s statement this week about Ballesteros entering the tournament: “He has been invited to play and he has accepted.”

There’s more warmth in a foot of snow in Buffalo.

IN L.A., WE LOVE SUSHI

Lee Westwood is a snob. Well, maybe not really, but he insists the reason he doesn’t play any more official money events on the PGA Tour (eight in 1998) is that he isn’t interested in money. Uh, right.

Westwood, from Worksop, England, admits he doesn’t particularly like the PGA Tour.

“Why do something you don’t like when you can avoid it?” he said.

Why, indeed? Besides, there are lots of reasons Westwood prefers to play in Europe--besides the opportunity to play for less money on generally questionable courses.

Food.

“In Italy we eat pasta, in Spain we drink Rioja and when we’re in Germany the beer is great,” Westwood said.

Well, Lee, we have some darned fine restaurants over here too, many of them with wine lists.

WOODS WAS SECOND

For what it’s worth, in the latest Golf World, Johnny Miller picks Woods to win the Masters, Ernie Els to win the U.S. Open, Greg Norman to win the British Open and Steve Elkington to win the PGA.

It should be noted that in a recent column in the same publication about the 1998 major champions, Miller congratulated Mark O’Meara for winning the U.S. Open. (Lee Janzen won.)

FOR AN AGENT

Mark Steinberg, who succeeded Hughes Norton as Woods’ agent at IMG, has handed off two of his LPGA clients--Karrie Webb and Michelle McGann--but he’s keeping Annika Sorenstam.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

As the defending champion in next week’s Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, Fred Couples knows there are going to be more than a few distractions: amateur partners, celebrity partners, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, scores so low they’re kept on sonar, 90 holes, five days and four courses.

Presumably, other than that, it’s pretty simple.

Last year, Couples torched the desert courses at 28 under and beat Bruce Lietzke in a playoff. But that’s not even close to a Hope record. Tom Kite was 35 under in 1993 when he won.

Couples says there is a certain mind-set that helps to play this birdie bonanza.

“You just need to pay attention to what you’re doing,” Couples said. “Some guys hate the format, but I love it.”