TURNBERRY, Scotland -- The perspective questions almost make him laugh.
He tries to be polite and all, but David Duval has never been good at suffering fools well, and let's face it, good intentions notwithstanding, there are a few guys in clown's hats working in the media.
A few days before he was set to tee it up in the British Open, Duval was hit with another in a series of questions asking him to provide some perspective on the eight years he spent wandering in the forest as he fought to reclaim his game.
You're pretty much lost as well if you don't recall the general particulars -- after climbing to world No. 1 and winning his first major, in England in 2001, Duval sank faster than the RMS Titanic. Down periscope -- fans needed an undersea sub to find a trace of him.
So, yeah, he's not the same guy, personally or professionally, he was in 2000-01, during those long-gone halcyon days. Thanks for asking, Dr. Obvious.
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"I mean, aren't you, from 10 years ago?" Duval asked, rhetorically. "It's a funny thing, when we get asked those questions. I mean, I'm 37 years old now, not 28. I'm married with five kids, not single with no kids.
"I'm entirely different and that's the whole purpose. I feel like growing and getting more life experience and maturing. I mean, I think that as people all of us strive to change and be better and become more understanding and compassionate as you grow older, and hopefully a little wiser.
"So, am I different? Damn right I'm different. Everybody in this room is different than they were 10 years ago."
As it relates to his climb to the mountaintop in golf, here's hoping he's the same as he ever was. After eight lean years, only time will tell whether Duval's dry-lightning-strike, runner-up finish last month at the U.S. Open was merely the beginning, and not the end, of what could someday rank as the craziest comeback in sports history.
Sure, unlike Cinderella Man boxer James Braddock, cyclist Lance Armstrong, swimmer Dara Torres, golfer Ben Hogan or failed baseball player Michael Jordan, Duval never missed a significant stretch of time because of retirement, personal illness or career-threatening injury. But the magnitude of the attempt seems comparable, if not even more impressive in some ways.
Duval had plummeted sans parachute into irrelevance, to No. 882 in the world when he showed up at Bethpage Black for the U.S. Open. He survived a qualifier to land a spot in the field, hadn't finished better than 55th all year, and given that he hadn't posted a top 10 finish since 2002, the only expectation was that he would be spending the weekend visiting the Big Apple tourist spots.
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| Winning his first major, the 2001 British Open, did not bring the fulfillment David Duval thought it would. (Getty Images) |
Duval felt otherwise, but we had heard it all before, going back three years or so. He had become such a one-note opera, he had busted all but a single string on his violin and rubbed raw the same spot on the fingerboard. The song remained the same: He swore he was seeing progress and insisted that he was on the cusp of a breakthrough, but the perceived momentum did not manifest in results. His scores remained farther north than his home base, Denver.
"Eight, 10 months ago I felt like I was really close to having put my golf swing back together and my game back together, blah blah," he said last week, knowing the lyrics only too well.
Thus, the list of people who weren't stun-gun shocked by his emergence from an eight-year coma at the U.S. Open last month could be counted on a single, Cabretta leather-gloved hand. There was Duval, his swing coach, a few members of his immediate family. Other than a few chirping crickets residing in the Bethpage weeds, there wasn't much else in Double D's marching and shouting club. Happier than ever in his personal life, his professional side was missing one key ingredient.
"I felt as if confidence was a thing that was holding me back, or lack thereof, and made a focused, concentrated effort on gaining confidence and succeeded," he said of his Bethpage breakthrough. "Or, am succeeding -- still working on that.
"I went to New York just entirely comfortable, happy with how I was playing, excited to play the golf course, and managed to keep myself composed and patient, and had a good week."
That's humility talking. He nearly pulled off the biggest upset in the game's rich history. Go ahead. Convince me otherwise. We're not having it.
Last week at the John Deere Classic, where he played for the first time since Bethpage and missed the cut by two -- his 66 in the second round equaled his best score of the year -- Duval was peppered with the predictable questions about how he had managed to keep his head up, and what he had learned over the course of his 18-wheel, jack-knifing skid. Never particularly comfortable talking about himself, he couldn't even decide whether his struggles made him more greatly appreciate the salad days of his late 20s.
"It's a really good question to ask somebody," he said. "I know, it's a very fair question. But I don't know the answer to that, if it does or doesn't. I don't feel like I didn't appreciate what I was doing 10 years ago, but maybe I did in a way."
It was a vintage Duval answer. Often a tough egg to crack a few years ago and perceived to be somewhat impregnable, Duval has since become downright self-deprecating and modest. Whatever the reason, which might include the royal beat down he has received at the hands of the golfing gods, the dry wit that was often masked by the wraparound sunglasses is more often coming to the fore.
For instance, it has been noted that he has gone back to his old punching weight, circa 1998 or so -- and then some. A svelte practitioner of yoga at the peak of his powers, he once posed for a photo spread in a monthly golf magazine while wearing a spandex outfit. That was probably 35 pounds ago.
Asked recently whether he was back in his old comfort zone, Duval cracked, "You mean the buffet zone?"
The day after he slogged through 36 holes of sectional qualifying to make the U.S. Open field, he was spotted on the range in Memphis, where he was receiving hearty congratulations from a line of folks.
"You're just surprised I made it all 36, right?" Duval deadpanned.
The sectional was a sign that things were coming around, though the flare was easy to miss. Eight years into the worst skid ever experienced by a marquee player, there have been plenty of false starts along the way. Twelve months ago this week, in fact, at the British Open at Birkdale, Duval stuck his head out of the ground like Punxsutawney Phil. Then he dived back in the hole for a few more months.
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| Wife Suzie and old/new coach Puggy Blackmon aren't the only ones pulling for a Duval breakthrough. (Getty Images) |
"I probably don't live it and die it like I may have back then, but I also haven't sought a return to be mediocre," he said last summer. "I know what greatness is about, and I know what it takes to have greatness. I won't settle for mediocrity.
"So I've been working towards greatness, not just getting back to making cuts and managing to play halfway decent. I've been trying to take the long route and the hard route and try to get back to greatness.
"You know, that story is yet to be told as to whether I can get back to that point or not, but that's what I strive for."
Most of us wanted to hug the guy, if not carry his golf bag. Duval is slightly off-center, something of a contrarian and an outright enigma to many, but he's also one of the brightest bulbs in the tour marquee -- not that his name has been in lights for a while. So, selfishly, there are plenty of scribblers who are hoping his performance at Bethpage wasn't a one-off riff, but the beginning of a true comeback.
However it plays out, Duval isn't the same cat he was a decade ago, when he was the last player not named Woods or Singh to be ranked world No. 1. Since his victory at the British, he has married, becoming stepfather to three kids and biological dad to two of his own. The kids had never seen him play worth a darn before Bethpage.
"My simple desire to play the game well and be in control of myself and the golf ball is what has kind of kept me going, and mix that in with the desire for my kids to see me play well and my wife to see me play well," he said. "They'd say, 'Well, we've seen you play well.' And I'm like, no, you haven't, actually. You haven't seen me play well.
"This was a year ago, six months ago. I'm like, I feel like I'm really, really good at hitting a golf ball, and you haven't actually seen me walk off a golf course saying, 'Now that's how you hit a golf ball.'
"I've done that a lot lately for the most part."
Plenty of theories have been offered regarding the root causes of his mind-numbing spiral into near oblivion, some of them spot-on. Namely, when he won the British Open, landing his long-awaited first major title, he believed it would serve as a crowning achievement. Instead, it proved a hollow victory since he had nobody to share it with.
"That's a pretty accurate description," said friend and former sports psychologist Gio Valiante, who began working with Duval soon thereafter. "It's the difference between an unfulfilled life and a fulfilled life."
Valiante was there when the latter mercifully began taking shape six years ago. The two were having a beer in a Denver restaurant, waiting for their table to become available, when they met a trio of women who didn't have the slightest whiff as to Duval's identity.
"One of the things I was working with him on was just getting him out of his hotel room," Valiante laughed, noting Duval's loner habit of driving straight from his room to the golf course, and vice-versa.
Afterward, Duval somewhat breathlessly told Valiante that he had made a "connection" with one of the trio, Suzie Persichitte, a divorced mother of three. Valiante said he almost laughed out loud.
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| Duval the family man wants his children to see him back at the top of his game. (Getty Images) |
Hilariously, Suzie said the same thing to her two girlfriends and the two were married in 2004. Duval, born and raised in Jacksonville, relocated to Denver and became an instant father and the embodiment of domestic bliss.
"Golf shouldn't and can't be your vehicle for fulfillment or happiness," said Valiante, who over the years has worked with a slew of top professionals, including Davis Love, Chris DiMarco and Camilo Villegas.
Duval's game, however, remained as rocky as a Denver mountain range. Niggling injuries to his back, wrist, neck and shoulder caused him to tweak his swing here and there, throwing him badly off-kilter. He visited multiple swing coaches in search of answers, seeking input from gurus like Hank Haney and David Leadbetter.
Three years ago, he reunited with his former college coach, Puggy Blackmon, who produced old videotape that Duval watched with a mixture of alarm and amusement. His swing had changed so much from when he was at the peak of his powers, he hardly recognized it anymore. Blackmon asked Duval to replicate his old swing positions.
"I was like, 'Dude, there ain't no way I can hit a golf ball like this," Duval recalled, laughing. "That's how bad it felt. Through my back problems and my wrist problems, my shoulders, I had gotten so out of whack with addressing and simply standing up. I was so cockeyed and compensating for every little problem. ....
"I was like, 'There's no way I can hit it from here.'"
Then he did exactly that. Duval, once one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour, reclaimed his power. Vestiges of his game returned, albeit in intermittent flashes. Finally, the last element, the confidence, resurfaced at Bethpage. Despite making triple bogey moments after the fourth round restarted on Monday morning, Duval played the final 15 holes in 2 under and finished T2, his best finish since N'Sync was still on the charts.
Sink or synch, where does he go from here? Everybody is hopeful, to say the least. He's articulate and unconventional, and unlike the younger set, needs no introduction to fans. The game is starving for color. Duval has battled and beaten the best, including Woods.
"The roof has already collapsed on him," Valiante said. "So I'm not sure there's much left that will shake him."
It's hardly a stretch to believe that Duval will have a few ups and downs over the short term before the pieces are completely reassembled, if it indeed happens. His timing is impeccable -- he won't be fully exempt on the PGA Tour after this year unless he finishes in the top 125 in earnings.
"I don't think David Duval, No. 1 in the world, the guy capable of winning five in a row, topping the money list, is back," Valiante said. "It'll probably be like the start-stop economy, where there's some bad water along with the good."
Beats being under water completely, right?
