ESPN.com - Golf Online - Masters 2000 - Frozen moment: Duval's hopes drown

By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Sunday, April 9

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- David Duval has told anyone who would listen this week that he has been thinking about The Masters since the beginning of the season.

He just thought a little too much about his second shot at 13 in the final round.


	David Duval's chances were washed away on No. 13.

And largely because of that, he's still without a major championship, while Vijay Singh has two.

Duval was 196 yards from the pin on the 485-yard par-5 13th. Singh, leading Duval by three shots, was already on the green in two. Duval stood over his ball, uncharacteristically indecisive because of the swirling wind and the slight sidehill lie, and backed off several times.

"I was trying to hit it in the same area that Vijay hit it, kind of up the left center of the green" Duval said. "I got over the ball, the wind picked up. Then it would die. The same thing kept happening. I just decided on the right line and the right club."

Duval finally decided on a 5-iron after consulting with caddie Greg Rita. But instead of playing to the middle of the green -- and a near-certain two-putt birdie -- as he had intended, Duval blocked the shot to the right toward the flag, but also toward the area where a creek winds dangerously close to the front of the green.

The ball trickled in. Duval's hopes for a birdie were dashed.

"I just hit a bad golf shot," Duval said over and over after the round. "It was the wrong time to do that. I feel that was the only poor shot I hit this weekend."

Duval dropped in the drop area, pitched to the 12 feet and missed the par putt, settling for a bogey on a hole that has played as the easiest at Augusta National this week with only 41 bogeys, compared to six eagles and 141 birdies.

Singh, safely in the center of the green, made birdie. His one-shot lead became three, and he cruised through the final five holes.

"I did think I was going to make that," Duval said of his putt. "But it wasn't as disappointing as the second shot, because that's what ultimately cost me the golf tournament."

The 13th was the third in a fortuitous series of holes for Singh.

At No. 11, he hit his second shot into the water left of the green. But instead of having to place his ball in the drop area behind the lake -- as players had to do all week -- Singh dropped next to the lake. The flag was in the back-left corner of the green and Singh was hooking his ball into the green. A rules official met with Singh and concluded that the ball never entered the hazard in front of the lake, allowing Singh to drop at the side.

He chipped up and made the putt for bogey when it could have been far worse.

"I hit a pretty crappy shot on No. 11," Singh said. "I tried to hit it to the right and pulled it. The drop made it all. I dropped it pretty close to the green. That angle was much easier to get it up and down from than going back to the ball drop."

On the par-3 12th, Singh hit his tee shot long, but instead of sticking in the bushes behind the green -- and a certain bogey or worse -- it bounced into the back bunker. Singh played out to five feet and made his par putt.

It was reminiscent of another break Singh got when he won his first major title, the 1998 PGA Championship at Sahalee. There, his second-shot at the par-5 11th hole skipped through the trees and onto the green, saving certain disaster.

"I hit the wrong club on No. 12," Singh said. "David hit a 7-iron, and he kind of cut it into the wind. When it left my club face, I said that was going over. But I'd practiced that bunker shot during the practice rounds, and I knew where the ball was going to go. And I knew I had a good lie."

Then came 13, when Duval's hopes trickled into the creek.

"I played well enough to win the golf tournament," Duval said. "A few things didn't quite work out, and I hit a couple of untimely shots,but that's how it is.

"I'm going to come back next year and try again."


		News Money Entertainment Kids Family	Search for on