Wednesday, August 1, 2001
Has Duval relit rivlary with Tiger?
By LEW PRICE
The Press-Enterprise
He had been effectively rendered invisible, lost in the wake of
history's greatest run of major championship golf.
Stoic and square-jawed, hidden behind those wrap-around shades,
David Duval was easily dismissed as past tense, a major bust.
But it was only five minutes ago, remember, that he was the No.
1 player in the world, only yesterday that he was the chosen one,
the presumed rival to Tiger Woods' world dominance.
Well, it's yesterday once more. Duval has won his major now, and
a rivalry has been reborn.
Hasn't it?
“I've said before that the way our game is now, there are
not just two guys who are going to stick out,” Woods said
earlier this week following the televised Battle at Bighorn. “There
is a handful of guys — David, Phil (Mickelson), myself. Sergio
(Garcia) is starting to play well, Darren Clarke.
“We're all about the same age. You're going to see the same
guys butting heads for the next 10 to 15 years.”
The game can only hope.
Great rivalries in golf have always been rare. This is because
the game is so inherently difficult that on any given week only
a handful of players get it right.
There are just too many variables.
A player first has to master himself and the course before he
can worry about what anyone else is doing.
In golf, the best player usually doesn't win. In fact, it occurs
so seldom that Jack Nicklaus, until further notice, has been judged
the greatest player who ever lived after winning 70 times in more
than 600 tournaments.
Sure, he won 18 professional majors, but he lost 140.
The game requires such a delicate balance between the physical
and the mental that no one truly possesses it for long.
That's why Woods' mastery of the past two years has been captivating.
He has been so hardwired for victory he has demoralized the rest
of the world. He completed one of the great runs in history in
April when he won the Masters, completing a grand sweep of the
four majors.
But that was then, and the vagaries of the game have again asserted
themselves. Woods finished 12th in the U.S. Open in June and tied
for 25th in the British Open last month.
And now, Duval, the only player other than Woods to hold the No.
1 ranking the past three years, has asserted himself again.
“I kept believing I had the ability to do it even when people
were second-guessing me,” Duval said. “When they kept
saying I was the best player never to win a major, I took it as
a compliment.
“Certainly I might have more chances that I might succeed,
and in some of them I might fail. And I will be ridiculed for
it. But I could never be questioned again about whether I will
be able to do it.”
History, if not Woods, hopes he can.
The greatest golfers have always had someone pushing them, someone
against whom to measure their greatness.
Nicklaus had Arnold Palmer in the beginning, then Gary Player
and Lee Trevino and later Tom Watson and Johnny Miller.
Woods, so far, has had . . . who?
It takes two to create a rivalry, and so far neither Duval nor
Mickelson nor anyone else at a time when depth of talent is so
great has been able to sustain the challenge.
The push has been on for more than two years to manufacture a
rivalry between Woods and Duval. But real rivalries are not created
in the press or by computers that spit out world rankings. They
are forged inside the ropes, preferably in majors.
So far, Woods' only rivals have been Nicklaus and history.
Before a back injury derailed his 2000 season, Duval appeared
the likely candidate to provide the theater.
The two are close enough in age — Duval, at 29, is four years
older that Woods — to be contemporaries, different enough
in style to be adversaries.
Both are long off the tee, and, for power hitters, relatively
straight.
Duval hits more greens, but Woods has the better short game. Both
are streaky good with the putter.
But their one head-to-head showdown on a major Sunday was a mismatch,
Woods routing Duval by 8 strokes at St. Andrews last summer.
Does one major make a difference?
“Whether there is a rivalry or not is not my decision,”
Duval said. “I can play and you can write what you want to.
You had written I was done the last two years and Phil was the
rival. Then it was Sergio. It's been the flavor of the month.
“I guess it depends on how well I play. If I don't play well
at the PGA Championship and Tiger wins, I guess I'm done. I just
go along with it.”
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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