FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- There are no second acts in American lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it, a generalization, hyperbole. David Duval is on stage once more, the script edited, the character unchanged. Raise the curtain.
Call it a comeback. That’s a more sporting term than second act. Call it a return. A renaissance, although in a way it’s been going for a while.
It’s just that on days such as Saturday, when Duval becomes a presence in a U.S. Open that has become beholden to the weather officials, we realize the man still is a great golfer. Still can play.
When the second round of this 109th Open ended Saturday, with officials hustling those who made the cut to start the third, trying to end the tournament on Sunday as scheduled, there was Duval tied for fourth place at 3-under par 137.
There was Duval, at age 37, saying, “I love playing the game. I love competing. But more than that, I’d really like for my wife and family to see how I can actually play the game. They haven’t seen me at my best, and I want them to.’’
We saw him. Saw him shoot a 59. Saw him ascend to the top of the world rankings. That was 10 years ago, when the part of golf that didn’t belong to Tiger Woods belonged to David Duval.
We saw Duval come close to winning the Masters a couple of times and heard him spill out his heart about the beauty of being in the hunt and then missing the prize.
We saw Duval at last conquer his demons and win a major, the British Open in 2001 at Royal Lytham St. & St. Annes, standing at the summit for which he had reached.
And then we saw Duval, the perfectionist, the intellectual, step away and literally move away, from the golfing mecca of Florida where he grew up to Denver and marry a woman who already had children to establish a life where the challenges had nothing to do with carrying a tee shot over a fairway bunker.
For various reasons that included back ailments and vertigo and a loss of interest, Duval and his game tumbled faster and farther than perhaps any top player. The golfer once No. 1 by last summer was ranked No. 1,087.
Then the climb back. He was only three shots out of the lead halfway into last year’s British Open before the wind and his errors created an 83. Painful, but not fatal. In fact, reassuring. He knew he still had it.
Now we know, too. “Patience is crucial in this game,’’ Duval reminded, “and I feel I have been patient for many years and continue to work hard. If anything, my patience is most tested over the last six, eight, 10 months, when I really felt like everything was falling together but nothing good was happening to me.’’
Duval’s formative years were difficult. At 9, he was the bone-marrow donor for his brother Brent, 12, who within weeks of the procedure died of aplastic anemia. David, it was said, blamed himself and grew even more inverted than he had been.
The death contributed to marital strife between David’s parents, who eventually divorced. By high school, Duval was a loner who, having been taught golf by his father, a pro, escaped into the game. He practiced by himself at the end of the range and once said his fondest memories as an adolescent golfer were of playing alone in heavy fog.
While Duval was a four-time All-American at Georgia Tech, he was known as Rock, both for his solid game and rough-edged personality. His intelligence -- David is one of the few people to understand the difference between “implied’’ and “inferred’’ -- manifests itself in arrogance, especially when pestered by journalists.
A sports psychologist contended that once Duval won the British, he was confronted with a vacuum with which it was hard to deal. It was as if Peggy Lee were singing, “Is that all there is?’’ That’s all there was, so David sought another life and found it.
He showed up at the 2004 U.S. Open, at Shinnecock, not having played a competitive round in seven months, the decision to use his exemption coming shortly before the Open as he sat in a golf cart at a course in Denver.
The exemption no longer exists. For the first time in 14 years, Duval had to qualify, which obviously he did successfully, a week and a half ago in Columbus, Ohio. Some golfers who had won major championships wouldn’t subject themselves to the pressure and, you could say, the ignominy.
David Duval was determined. He intends to get someplace close to where he used to be. He wants to perform that second act.
