David Duval

[earthshine2k]

Why did Duval fall off the map?? Two words. Tiger Woods. Duval was the best player in the world when Woods came along. He won 11 events in 18 monts between Oct. '97 and April of '99. He achieved the world's number one ranking in '99 as well, and had fired a final round 59 to win the Hope / Chrysler that year. Then, he decided he needed to get in better shape and be a better player to keep up with what Woods had done in 2000. He completely changed his body type and hurt his back lifting weights. Couple those two elements with an already 'quirky' swing, and he couldn't put the face of the club on the ball, anymore. He won his Major at the British in '01 and started fighting bouts of vertigo. The family came afterward, but, in my opinion, the game was already gone. He was the first great player in the Woods era to succumb to the perception that he needed to get 'better' to compete with Tiger. For my money, Duval should've been the one to look Tiger in the eye at the Majors. Tiger defeated Duval where it matters most. In the head.

 

[duckjr78]

Why did Duval fall off the map?? Two words. Tiger Woods. Duval was the best player in the world when Woods came along. He won 11 events in 18 monts between Oct. '97 and April of '99. He achieved the world's number one ranking in '99 as well, and had fired a final round 59 to win the Hope / Chrysler that year. Then, he decided he needed to get in better shape and be a better player to keep up with what Woods had done in 2000. He completely changed his body type and hurt his back lifting weights. Couple those two elements with an already 'quirky' swing, and he couldn't put the face of the club on the ball, anymore. He won his Major at the British in '01 and started fighting bouts of vertigo. The family came afterward, but, in my opinion, the game was already gone. He was the first great player in the Woods era to succumb to the perception that he needed to get 'better' to compete with Tiger. For my money, Duval should've been the one to look Tiger in the eye at the Majors. Tiger defeated Duval where it matters most. In the head.

I agree and disagree. I fully agree that DD was the one who could have looked Tiger in the eye on Sunday of a major. However, I don't see how Tiger defeated DD "in the head" by pushing him to improve. Tiger was pushed to improve and it worked, he got better and better until '00. He has since been trying to improve with somewhat mixed results. DD was pushed to improve and it didn't work. There are plenty of stories of successful people who tried to improve and had it backfire. Does this mean that trying to get better at something is wrong. I don't see how.

 

[SJO]

Completely disagree. If you were watching golf at the time, Duval lost a ton of weight and continued to play fantastic for a few years afterward and showed no signs of losing it. I don't know why he suddenly was hitting it off the planet but it wasn't because of losing weight.

 

[duckjr78]

Completely disagree. If you were watching golf at the time, Duval lost a ton of weight and continued to play fantastic for a few years afterward and showed no signs of losing it. I don't know why he suddenly was hitting it off the planet but it wasn't because of losing weight.

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but he was in good shape when he won the British, right?

 

[SJO]

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but he was in good shape when he won the British, right?

Yes, he was thin then.

I also disagree that he was beaten mentally by Woods. Duval played great under pressure and looked like being a great rival. Who knows what happened?

 

[duckjr78]

Yes, he was thin then.

I also disagree that he was beaten mentally by Woods. Duval played great under pressure and looked like being a great rival. Who knows what happened?

I don't think he got beaten mentally either. He was the one making the run at Tiger at St. Andrews. Who knows what happens if one more putt falls for him around the loop.

 

[chipingguru]

The old swing is on plane, but I am not detecting the under plane nature of the newer version.

Looks like a bent plane to me.

 

[finncox]

The old swing is on plane, but I am not detecting the under plane nature of the newer version.

Looks like a bent plane to me.

Obviously, I'm no expert. But, I was looking at a video comparing his swings, and it looked to me that his more recent swings definitely drop more under than his older, dominant swing. I don't know if it qualifies as "underplane," per se, but it isn't as "down the wall, left of the wall" through the ball as his older swing looked to me. Again, this is one video, and I'm obviously not an expert.