Confidence Game

After fighting to become No. 1 in the world, David Duval found it much tougher to stay there.

Updated: July 10, 2003, 5:17 PM ET

The game had always been his safe haven. Even as a boy, David Duval found comfort on fairways and greens. Even as he wondered how he'd survive the wounds inflicted by the outside world, golf confirmed for him the greatness he had inside. Nowhere was that more true than when he stood on the tee box. With driver in hand, Duval knew without thinking what would happen next. By 1999, when he overtook Tiger Woods as the No. 1 golfer in the world, Duval drove the ball so long and so straight that highway stripe-painters came to watch him work.

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