Backspin: Duval's 59

By Matt Cooper Last updated: 19th January 2010

With four weeks remaining of the 1997 PGA Tour season the then third year pro David Duval was nearing the end of his tether.

He had smashed thousands of balls on the range, pounded hundreds of miles on the treadmill and lifted a ton of weights in the gym. He was an ambitious (and some would say angry) young golfer who couldn't understand why he had finished in the top three 11 times without ever once lifting a trophy.

He had begun to ask friends when he was going to win and yet if any of those friends had told him the truth he would have laughed in their face so absurd was the manner with which he threw off his maiden winner's tag.

He began his transformation by winning the Michelob Championship in October and one week later added the Walt Disney World Classic too. After a week off he completed the hat-trick with the Tour Championship.

The first golfer since Ben Hogan to win his first three tournaments in just three starts Duval was ruthless in using the momentum of those wins to launch an 18-month reign of supremacy on the PGA Tour.

From mid-October 1997 to the first week of April 1999 Duval played 36 events on the PGA Tour, winning 12 and finishing in the top ten on a further dozen occasions.

The run peaked with back-to-back victories in the Players Championship and the BellSouth Classic which vaulted him to number one in the world rankings. If those were his finest achievements in that period, his greatest round came three months earlier at the Bob Hope Classic in Indian Wells.

Arriving in California as the Mercedes Championship winner his form for the first four rounds of the 90-hole event was not too hot. Three times he failed to break 70 on the relatively easy resort courses and he entered the final round seven shots adrift of the leader Fred Funk.

The tournament is normally the platform for actors, comedians and ex-sports stars to play up to the camera, but on the final day Duval took centre-stage as he produced one of the PGA Tour's greatest performances.

He began brightly with four birdies in his first five holes (never once needing to hole a par-breaking putt of greater than five feet in length), but three pars followed and the early momentum seemed lost.

But when he birdied the next four holes (the longest putt being just eight feet) the camera crews were dispatched on the buggies - something special was on the cards.

Many low rounds come as the consequence of a player putting the lights out and yet Duval's flat-stick, although warm enough not to miss his many opportunities, was not being hugely tested - he was, in his own words, "getting kick-ins" thanks to iron play that appeared laser-directed.

He missed a 12 foot putt for birdie on the 13th green but made up for it on the next green by holing from ten feet.

On the short 15th he stiffed his 8-iron approach to just one foot: another "kick-in".

On the next he went even closer: a 2-iron from the tee and sand wedge approach left him with nothing more than a six-inch "kick-in".

When his 9-iron to the 17th green left him with 20-feet for birdie it almost seemed shoddy in comparison with what had gone before; he two-putted for par and approached the final hole needing an eagle to shoot 59.

He smoked his drive 320 yards down the fairway and then launched a 5-iron 210 yards over water. It came to rest just six feet from the flag.

"My conscious thought was 'pick the line and hit it quick,'" Duval said afterwards.

He didn't waste time and with the ball 12 inches short of the hole he began to punch the air.

"There it is," called ABC's commentator Mike Tiroco. "Fifty-nine. The best final round. Ever."

Playing partner Jeff Maggert was stunned: "It was an easy 59. I've never seen anyone hit the ball that close for an entire round. I didn't want to say the wrong thing. Finally, after he stiffed it for the fourth straight time on a par-3, I said, 'I didn't realize we were playing par-2s today.'"

Golfers often say after a victory that their success was helped by the distraction of chasing some sort of alternative prize - an Order of Merit or Ranking position, a place in a team event (like the Ryder Cup) or a winning bet of some kind.

But not many golfers have experienced Duval's "distraction".

"I'm not going to sit here and lie to you," he said afterwards, "I was more excited about the score than having a chance to win the tournament."

Pity runner-up Steve Pate who put together a perfectly good final round of six-under par that wasn't enough. "I heard David had a 59 when I had about two holes to go," he said. "I played better than all but one guy."

Duval's 59 was only the third in PGA history (after Al Geiberger in 1977 and Chip Beck in 1991) and it prompted excited talk of 58 being the new number to chase - Beck himself thought it was only a matter of time.

Curious, then, that technology has continued to make the game easier and very few have come close to another 59 let alone bettered it (although David Gossett and Harrison Frazar have both managed 59s at Q School).

For Duval, having reached number one in the world rankings by April of 1999, the next step was to claim a major victory. He excelled at Augusta and impressed at St Andrew's in the 2000 Open (before floundering in the Road Hole Bunker) but his body was becoming susceptible to injury.

Then, in July 2001, he took the Open Championship by the scruff of the neck, shooting 65-67 on the weekend at Royal Lytham to finally become a major winner.

In the immediate aftermath of his win two things happened, both frequently discussed but rarely connected.

The first of these events definitely happened because we saw it, even if many couldn't believe their eyes.

The apparently aloof Duval had a reputation in the game built around his distinctive appearance and little was known of him: we knew about his tireless practice, his strength exercises, his unflappable demeanour and anonymous sunglasses; we assumed he was a relentless golfing machine with no personality.

Yet, in a moment of simple revelation, when he removed his sunglasses and sponsor's hat, we saw the man rather than the machine.

What's more, his speech was graceful, polite and likeable.

Interestingly, although many were pleased to acknowledge they might have misunderstood Duval, they also continued to blame his sunglasses and demeanour for the misrepresentation - it was his fault for hiding away behind the 'mask', not our fault for pre-judging him.

The second episode post-Lytham may be apocryphal - it is said Duval woke the morning after his Open win and asked himself: "Is that it?"

So under-whelmed was he said to have been by achieving the greatest prize in the sport that he subsequently struggled to find further motivation; it was is if the "real" Duval had been revealed to David himself as well as the golfing public.

It seems a little too neat to suggest this happened overnight, but Duval admits, "my existential moment was absolutely there, after the Open."

He worked with the sports psychologist Gio Valiente, who said of that period: "David always assumed that because golf was his life, when he reached his goals in golf, he'd find fulfilment. When he reached his goal, and saw that he still wasn't fulfilled, he truly realised for the first time that golf isn't life."

Duval might have lost his mental drive after Lytham, but he has suggested that physically he was on the wane before then - the ultimate success coming when he didn't really expect it.

Part of the problem was his swing. NBC analyst Johnny Miller said of it after his 59: "He has an amazing follow-through, which is a key to accuracy and power. He has tremendous range of motion and total extension to the target." But the strain of that demanding swing contributed to injuries to his back, shoulders and wrists, and the weight loss from a rigorous fitness program (designed to alleviate his frailties) only compounded the problems. Since 2001 he has won nothing, other contributing factors being a split from his long-term girlfriend and vertigo.

He then met current wife Susie and together they have created a large and happy family.

In 2009 Duval very nearly won the US Open at Bethpage - had he done so it might have ranked amongst the greatest of all time because it was his first top ten on the PGA Tour since 2002.

But the win slipped from his grasp with a three-putt on the 17th green.

Duval is no ordinary tour pro - his use of the word "existential" proves as much.

Even during his successes Mark O'Meara said of him, "David might be one of those guys who could walk." Meaning he might leave the game at the top (he once talked of opening a coffeehouse-come-bookstore).

He has always trod his own path and would continue to do so if he stayed in the game: "Course design might be something I'd be interested in though it would have to be daily, fee-type courses - a quality product accessible to everyone, not something you have to come up with $75,000 to join."

After coming so close to victory at Bethpage Duval said, "I love competing, but more than that I'd really like my wife and my family to see how I can actually play this game. They haven't seen me at my best and I want them to."

There are plenty of us who hope Duval gets that chance again.

Matt Cooper