Golf Central

On this day in 1971, the best golfer on the face of the planet for a 15-week span was born - David Robert Duval of Jacksonville, Florida, whose legions of fans are still hoping that they might someday see his face ... or that the one-time two-man duel between the immensely talented Duval and Tiger Woods might rekindle into one of sport's great rivalries.
     David Duval is only 36 today, folks. And it's less than nine years ago that Duval carded one of the greatest competitive scores in modern golf history when he rallied from seven shots behind to fire a 59 in the last round of the '99 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic to win by a stroke over Steve Pate.
     Duval needed an eagle on the par-5 18th to pull off the win ... and he did it, going driver, 5-iron over water, and making an 8-footer. It remains only the third - and the last - 59 on the PGA Tour books. And in case your memory needs jogging, or in case you want to know how to shoot 59, here's how David Duval did it ...
     It's also wasn't long ago when Duval was winning Vardon Trophies and 13 PGA Tour titles, including the 2001 British Open, after which his victory speech was praised by the notoriously sceptical British press as one of the most heartfelt a winner had delivered in years. Still, Duval is misrepresented as a mysterious man in wraparound shades, whose quiet honesty comes off as aloofness. It's no secret that Duval has fallen on hard times in recent years, shooting as many rounds in the 80s and he did under par. Perhaps it's a matter of caring too much. He's intensely private, so Duval has left the press to speculate: vertigo, romances gone wrong, burn-out, addiction to snowboarding, etc., and Duval has been happy to let them guess.
     Our guess is that Duval is a bright flame that has flickered and not yet gone out. Duval and his wife Susie have five kids in their nest, the latest of whom, baby daughter Sienna, was born after an extremely difficult pregnancy in September. The PGA Tour, in a rare show of compassion, has granted Duval with a special exemption to play in 2008 under a new "Family Crisis" regulation to its Medical Exemption Policy.
     Duval only played seven events on the 2007 PGA Tour but his scores were cause for hope. He begins his 2008 campaign with a now-lowly world ranking of No. 616, but we are looking through our wraparound shades for the walls to come tumbling down again ...
     ... like they did in 1989, when Cold War-weary Berliners went mad as the Berlin Wall was breached after nearly 30 years of keeping east and west sides of the city apart. If that's not reason to have hope for Duval after an eight-year slump, then nothing is.
     It was also today in 1960 that John F. Kennedy pulled off a narrow victory to become the youngest elected president of the US. And in 1985, Garry Kasparov showed he was pretty bright for a whipper-snapper too, whipping Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest world chess champion.
     Such was the brightness of Duval's recent greatness that World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Weiskopf has his 65th birthday relegated to what passes for the agate pages of this golf journal. But it's Allet Jute ooch zum Jeburtstach!, as they say all over Berlin, to Weiskopf, he of the 1973 British Open title at Troon and the smoothest reverse-C follow-through until Vijay Singh came along.
     It's also highly improvisional birthday greetings to Who's Line Is It Anyway regular Tony Slattery (48); green icing on the cake of action hero Lou Ferrigno (58) of Incredible Hulk fame; and an extra dash of "Pepa" on the birthday cake of Sandy Denton (38) of Salt-N-Pepa.
     Genius Welsh literary figure Dylan Thomas could have delivered the birthday poems, but he carked it on this day in '53 at age 39 after one too many visits to Swansea pubs. Words to the wise.