Tales From The Bunker

We are back and raring to go after some time off. Sorry to take it in the middle of the David Duval Saga. Np doubt there have been sleepless nights among our readers wondering how the Duval saga will end .

Duval grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, the middle kid — three years younger than his brother, Brent, and five years older than his sister, Deirdre. His father, Bob Duval supported the family as the head pro at nearby Timuquana Country Club.

David and Brent did everything together. But in the fall of 1980, 12-year-old Brent began to look pale and to complain of fatigue. His parents at first thought he had a stubborn flu. During the Christmas break, he was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a lethal disease in which bone marrow stops making the stem cells that generate infection-fighting blood cells. His only hope was a bone-marrow transplant from a compatible donor — David.

The first two biopsies of David’s marrow, which would ascertain its compatibility, were performed without anesthetic. David bore up bravely until the augur bit the bone, and then he screamed and writhed as his father and a nurse held him down. When the needle was drawn, the doctor turned to the other hip. David was given general anesthesia for the four subsequent punctures.

For a few weeks, it looked like the family had gotten a miracle. Brent’s color and energy came back. The doctors said he was progressing well enough for his parents to make plans to take him home. Then fever. Vomiting. Further tests: Brent’s body was rejecting David’s tissue. There was nothing the doctors could do. David returned to the hospital to say goodbye. At the sight of the bald, wasted boy lying in a welter of tubes, David cried, “That’s not Brent! That’s not my brother!” and fled from the room.

On May 17, 1981 Brent died.

His Little League teammates carried his coffin at the funeral in Jacksonville. David endured stoically until a few weeks later, when, blaming himself for the failed marrow transplant, he burst into sobs and cried out, “I killed him! I killed him!”

David’s mother kept a large picture of Brent in the front hall, spoke about him in the present tense, and tried to preserve his room as it had been the day he left. She fell away from religion and into alcoholism. Bob Duval also looked for solace in a bottle, and about a year later, in a decision that confounded his surviving son, left the home. He returned after about a year, then left for good and eventually remarried.

In our final segment David tries to put his life back together and eventually finds happiness.

Until then, Keep’em in the fairway.

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David Duval was on fire from the end of 1997 to early 1999. He won 11 of 34 tournaments including his infamous 59 to win the Bob Hope Dessert Classic.   The world rankings had made official what had been obvious for months: It was no longer Tiger Woods who was the number one player in the world. It was Duval with his signature Oakley shades.  His sunglasses, worn to correct astigmatism and protect his sensitive eyes, were symbolic of his desire to keep the world from knowing the true Duval. His shyness and social anxiety came across as callow self-absorption.

His glory years were brief and he tumbled quickly. His woes began when a sprained fifth lumbar vertebra threw his back out in early 2000. His swing got out of whack as he tried to compensate for the injury. The great fairway driver would stand on the tee not knowing whether his ball was going left or right. Sometimes his back was so tight he could do nothing but lie down on the floor.

By 2004 Duval had fallen to #434 in the world rankings. Of the 20 tournaments he entered in 2005, he made the cut in one, earning $7,630. He was winless in 2006; winless in 2007, playing on a medical exemption; and winless in 2008 and 2009, playing on the last of his lifetime earnings exemptions. Now he has to rely on the kindness of sponsors to get into fields.

Probably no elite athlete has fallen so far so fast. Those are the facts of his career but to really know who David Duval is you have to go back to when he was a nine year old boy and tragedy struck his family. A tragedy that David took most of his life to recover from.
In our next blog we will examine his tragic childhood and how he finally found happiness in his life.

As always keep ‘em in the fairway.

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By now some of us have maybe heard too much about the 25tth anniversary of Jack’s 1986 historic Masters Victory. (Personally I can never get too much) We have heard the details and seen the historic putts but how many of us know the story behind the yellow shirt he wore that day?

We all know Tiger always wears red on Sunday but Jack did not seem to have any type of similar tradition.  Please watch the short video below and once again realize what a class act Jack Nicklaus has always been.

Remember to keep’em in the fairway.

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One more Masters is in the books and Charl Schwartzel is the big winner. (Whoever he is) And one more major goes by without a Tiger victory.  Are his days of dominance over or is he still working on his new swing? Only time will tell.

Jack Nicklaus had one swing coach for 39 years, Jack Grout. Grout believed in self-sufficiency, that a golfer had to be charge of his own swing. Only by being self reliant could a golfer achieve his full potential.

Tiger is on his third swing coach. His first, Butch Harmon, believed in using a players existing swing and correcting any problems, a Grout like approach.  His second, Hank Haney, teaches a specific swing system that took Tiger 18 months to fully adopt.

Hank claims he quite on his own last May. He talked about the constant pressure from Woods to watch every single shot in every single tournament so he would be ready to answer any question Tiger may have on any particular shot. After each major he would lay awake at night trying to figure out how to make Tiger a better golfer. That type of pressure can last only so long so he took Tiger’s personal problems as an opportunity to quite.

Tiger’s newest coach, Sean Foley, also teaches a specific system.  But his system is completely different and Sean has not made a secret of his disdain for Hank Haney.

Some quotes from Sean on Tiger’s Haney swing include “There is nothing about what he was doing in his previous swing that made any sense to me” and “Let’s be honest about this. It’s not like he was flushing it with Hank.”

Let look at Tiger’s performance under the two coaches. Under Haney he won 6 majors and finished in the top ten in 85% of the tournaments he entered. Under Sean he has zero major wins and zero wins period. While his swing is still a work in progress, until Tiger achieves some success, Sean ….just shut up!

As always, keep’em in the fairway.

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