Duval Takes Mercedes Champs
At this rate, No. 1 in the world is only a matter of time for David Duval.
Tiger Woods believes it, and no one else was in the mood to argue after Duval sailed to victory Sunday in the season-opening Mercedes Championships, closing with 5-under 68 to break the tournament scoring record and win by nine strokes over Mark O'Meara and Billy Mayfair.
Just two months after he ended a spectacular season on the PGA Tour by winning four times, earning a record $2.6 million and taking the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average, Duval wasted little time showing there is much more to accomplish.
On a Kapalua Plantation course that finally produced the vicious trade winds from the northeast, Duval finished at 266 to break the Mercedes scoring record set by Calvin Peete at La Costa Resort in 1986 when he had a 21-under 267.
The margin of victory was the widest on the PGA Tour since Woods won the Masters by 12 strokes, and it was the largest in the winners-only Mercedes since Gene Littler won by 13 strokes in 1955.
O'Meara, who beat Duval for PGA Tour player of the year honors after winning the Masters and British Open, closed with a 5-under 68 and Mayfair had a 71 to finish at 275. Vijay Singh was another stroke back, while Woods, Justin Leonard and Fred Funk were at 277.
"What you want to do out here is to prove you're better than any other player," Woods said. "David has been doing that."
Duval's victory probably isn't enough to jump ahead of Woods and O'Meara in the Official World Rankings. But under the confounding formula for computing No. 1, a two-year rolling system that gives more weight to the current 52 weeks, that figures to change in the next few months.
The official word from the rest of the field spoke volumes.
"He's right up there with Tiger," said Tom Watson, pausing to consider all that Duval has accomplished in such a short time. "Right now, he has surpassed Tiger."
Watson knows the feeling, having won eight times in 12 months that culminated when he repeated as the Byron Nelson Classic champion in 1980.
"The way it's going for him was the same with me," Watson said after a round of 76. "Winning begets winning. You feel you can win every time you play -- not that you're going to win, but that you can be around the lead or in the lead all the time."
Against a backdrop of white caps dancing across the Pacific Ocean in winds that gusted to 30 mph, the final round sarted out as a survival course and turned into a coronation.
"He's a great player," O'Meara said. "I've played with him when he's played at his best, and he's just coming into his own."
Even when Duval missed three of the first four greens, even when Funk knocked trimmed two strokes off the five-shot lead through five holes, Duval never blinked.
He fired an approach into 6 feet on the sixth hole for birdie, played an 80-foot chip with 30 feet of break to within 3 feet to save par on No. 8 and birdied the ninth to restore order at Kapalua.
By the time he reached the 13th tee with a five-stroke lead and the tournament in the bag, Duval had to wait 20 minutes when Woods, playing in the group ahead, couldn't find his drive in the tall grass and had to return to the tee to play another.
That gave Duval ample time to gaze below at surfers riding the crest of a wave.
He certainly can relate.
The victory was his eighth in his last 27 tournaments, dating to his first career win in the Michelob Championship in October 1997. It is the best stretch on the PGA Tour since Nick Price won nine times in just under 15 months in the 1993-94 season.
Duval won $468,000, along with a Mercedes-Benz SL 500. He now has won $4,328,031 in his last 27 tournaments, and average of $160,020 every time he tees it up.
"It's been phenomenal, no question about it," O'Meara said. "It wouldn't faze me at all if he went on to win five or six tournaments this year. He's got the ability to do it."