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DULUTH, Ga. -- David Duval got started on the next tournament in his latest comeback at one of his favorite restaurants.
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Waffle House.
"I had eggs, chicken, toast, grits and a double order of hash browns," Duval said, breaking into a smile that has seemed so hard to muster through much of his golfing career. "Gotta have the double order of hash browns."
Now, if only Duval could order up the shots that once made him the world's No. 1 player.
It's been seven years since he was that aloof, buffed-up golfer in the dark, wraparound sunglasses, striking fear into lesser players and looking every bit like this generation's most worthy challenger to Tiger Woods.
But, instead of playing the Tom Watson role to Woods' Jack Nicklaus, Duval became the guy who would have trouble competing at Q-school. He still has his PGA Tour card, but that has more to do with personal hardship than anything he's done lately on the course.
Duval played in only seven tournaments in 2007, stepping aside to be with his wife during a difficult pregnancy. He's played eight times this year on a "family crisis" waiver, but has yet to make a cut. Yep, the guy who's won nearly $17 million in his career has yet to earn a single dollar in 2008.
He's also heavier than he was in his prime, carrying a noticeable bulge around his midsection. He is listed at 180 pounds, but he's probably closer to 200 and says he needs to lose about 20 pounds. But Duval insists he's happy with his life and confident he can turn things around.
"I'm a lot closer to playing great golf than my scores indicate," said Duval, whose averaging nearly 75 strokes per round and doesn't rank any higher than 106th in the myriad of categories kept by the PGA Tour. "When I'm swinging well, nobody hits the golf ball any better than I do."
He was once the world's top-ranked player, supplanting Woods in the standings. He became the first golfer ever to shoot 59 in the final round of a tournament, closing with an eagle on the 18th hole of the 1999 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He has won 13 tournaments on the PGA Tour and 19 around the world, the last of them seemingly the one that would propel his career to even greater heights.
Instead, after winning the 2001 British Open, Duval went into a free fall. He slumped to 80th on the money list in 2002 and 211th the following year. He was more likely to shoot 80 as he was to break par, as likely to hit someone in the gallery as he was the fairway.
"It's a lot more fun when you're shooting 66 every day," he conceded Wednesday, before heading off to play in the pro-am for this week's AT&T Classic in suburban Atlanta.
Along the way, Duval found clarity in his personal life -- marrying, becoming a father, insisting he had discovered a greater purpose than hitting a golf ball. Some even wondered if family bliss ruined his career, taking away that competitive edge he once held over everyone not named Tiger.
