The big galleries might have been following the glamorous Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Lee Westwood pairing or the May-December Tom Watson, Rory McIloy and Ryo Ishikawa group. But those fans with a sense of history and a feel for the struggle at the heart of this game found their way over to the first tee at 1:03 p.m. Pacific Time, when three former British Open champions teed off together.
Although they all shared a trophy, the three men could not be at more different stages of their careers. Tom Lehman, a former No. 1 player in the world, recently won the Senior PGA Championship, while Ben Curtis is still trying to prove he's not the Jack Fleck of Generation X. Then there is David Duval.
Another former No. 1 player, Duval might just be the worst-best player in the history of the game. He lulls us too sleep with a steady stream of duck hooks and snowmen and then — like a genie out of a bottle — he shows up big at the best tournaments. Throughout the years I've watched him up close — from college to a year on the Nationwide Tour to his rise to No. 1 in the world in 1998. His best is Tiger caliber and his worst rivals Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup.
On Thursday, the three men were a combined 16-over par on a day when the field's stroke average was 75.2. Duval met the field standard with a four-over 75, the best score in his group.
"What do you want?" said Duval when a reporter tried to downplay the effect of wind on the scores. "We had a two-club wind through holes 8, 9 and 10."
Duval knows something about playing well in tough conditions. Last year at the U.S. Open at Bethpage, he emerged from the abyss to finish in a tie for second. This week he looks like a man at the top of his game, despite missing eight cuts in 13 starts this season. In his trademark wraparound sunglasses and with a full mouth of Skoal, the 38-year old former Georgia Tech star fought through the elements like the wily veteran that he is. Watching Duval fret over club selections with his caddie, you would have thought he had never played Pebble Beach in the past. "No doubt," he said after his round. "It's a different course than we played back in February when I tied for second at the AT&T."
Duval's group played at a glacial pace. Coming off the third tee, they were told that they were out of position and by the time they finished they were 30 minutes behind schedule. But the Rules official who told me this must have forgotten about the 10 minutes they waited at the brutal 17th, which played as the hardest hole (3.58) on the course on Thursday.
Plus, it was hard to blame guys from playing slow in Thursday's conditions. After the wait on 17, Duval pured a 5-iron that found the front bunker. Ben Curtis, a much shorter hitter, hit a 21-degree hybrid that found the same trap and, playing last, Lehman put his ball in the same bunker. The wind was howling.
Most of the bloodshed and anxiety happened on the greens. I used to think that only Bernhard Langer could line up a 2-footer, but I saw Duval and company doing it all day. "Some of the greens were bumpy and the pins were in some tight places," Duval said. Yet Double D made the best of it. He putted well and — but for a double bogey on the 16th hole on an admittedly boneheaded tee shot — his round would have been respectably unblemished by U.S. Open standards.
After his Cinderella story at the Bethpage last year I wondered if Duval had found his game. But after that week, he played so poorly that he didn't even have full status on the PGA Tour at the beginning of the year. Duval has one more day to prove that Bethpage wasn't a fluke. He looks confident and engaged. It just depends on which Duval we see Friday: the one who is a top 10 player in the world or the one who rakes up missed cuts like a washed-up veteran or the 22-year old kid straight out of college struggling to learn the Tour's golf courses.
So the question is: Will the real David Duval please stand up?
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