Duval gets back to basics

The defending champion has had a difficult year. Philip Reid listens to talk of a sudden turnaround.

The defending champion has had a difficult year. Philip Reid listens to talk of a sudden turnaround.

David Duval has always been a touch removed, often living in a world of his own. As a boy, he loved to golf in fog where no one could see him; and he could see no one. It was a place where it seemed that the sky was colluding with him, lowering a grey curtain between him and everyone else.

In time, he learned to open up; and nowhere was this more clearly demonstrated than in the moments after his British Open triumph at Royal Lytham & St Annes a year ago. Duval, the man who lived his life behind designer shades, spoke words that were humble, engaging and sensible. They were words that revealed an inner depth that had escaped many of us, and they brought a new appeal.

Now, as defending champion, his private thoughts aren't quite so private. He has endured, to use his own words, "a pretty bad year", and the turmoil that is going on in his mind leaves him unsure as to what will happen this week. In the US Open at Bethpage, he shot 11-over and missed the cut, and it remains to be seen if a little rest and recuperation and playing some practice rounds with Tiger Woods in Ireland last week will have provided the antidote to whatever ills he has been suffering.

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In attempting to explain where it has all gone wrong, Duval is uncertain that he truly knows.

"I lost a little bit of focus," he explained, "I've got a little bit too absorbed in how I'm swinging the club. Ironically enough, I seem to forget that at Lytham last year I won the golf tournament hitting the ball well, but not nearly as well as I am capable of. I really think I am like any golfer. I strive to improve, and seek to improve. I just chose the wrong path to go down."

Duval's quest to regain his form has brought him back to his past.

"I'm thinking about getting back to what made me so good at playing the game, which was simplicity. I built a golf swing off feel and off practice, and I had sound fundamentals.

"You can argue my grip is strong. However, it made the things I did very simple. I've just got side-tracked from those keys a little, and it is just a matter of getting back on track with those things."

Since he clasped the Claret Jug close to his chest a year ago, Duval has failed to win again. He is enduring a thoroughly miserable season on the US Tour, languishing in 85th place in the money list with $481,392 and, from a position of being ranked third in the world at the end of 2001, he has dropped to eighth.

But there is no sense of despair. "I've played pretty darn good for nine years as a professional. I've had four or five bad months, but I recognise some of the things that I've been doing and, if I can correct those things and go another nine or 10 years and have five bad months in that time, I'll be a happy man.

"I've got my prime time ahead of me. I'm healthy. I'm fit. I'm strong. I'm clear on where I want to be and where I want to go, and so it is exciting for me in a sense. I am not at all pleased with my results, but it is kind of like putting. You get too caught up in the results and you lose sight of the process, and the process is what is important."

Maybe the feel-good factor of 12 months ago will assist Duval in his bid to recapture that winning form, and he certainly knows what it takes to win a major.

"The recipe to success in the Open is very simple: don't hit it in the pot bunkers and don't hit it in the high stuff. And if you hit it in a bunker, get out of the bunker in one, not two, or three, or six."

It's a simple logic. All that remains to be done is for Duval to follow his advice, and everything will be rosy again.

"I think I can win. I have it in me, and I have shown I have it in me. I know it hasn't been good for quite some time, however it can start feeling good real quick."