He went bone fishing in
the Bahamas and plans to watch his sister graduate from the University of Florida
on Saturday. Next week in Dallas, David Duval will end his one-month layoff and
return to the PGA Tour.
The GTE Byron Nelson Classic
is the first stop on his road to the U.S. Open, his next chance to win a major
championship. First, however, Duval has to put Augusta National in his rearview
mirror, which doesn't figure to be easy.
"I don't know if you get
over it," Duval said. "You just try to forget."
When Duval said two days
before The Masters that it was
his tournament to lose, he meant it. He had spent the previous seven months with
Augusta on his mind, which made the outcome Sunday even tougher to take.
He watched Vijay Singh
escape twice -- with a bogey after hitting into the water at No. 11, and with
a par from the back bunker at No. 12 -- and then Duval flinched with what he
calls his only bad swing of the weekend, a 5-iron hit fat from the 13th fairway
and into Rae's Creek, ending his hopes.
"I don't view it as a failure,"
he said. "It's just deflating when it doesn't work out and it was there for the
taking. But I'm ready to go again."
MASTERS
MONEY
Augusta National Golf Club
is giving $3 million to charities this year, with the CSRA Community Foundation
in Augusta, Ga., and The First Tee getting most of the money.
Augusta chairman Hootie
Johnson said CSRA Community Foundation will receive $1.25 million. The foundation,
which evaluates and selects charitable causes, has served Easter Seals, Boys
& Girls Clubs of Augusta, and the Lucy Laney Museum of Black History.
The First Tee initiative
will receive $1 million, while the rest of the money will be distributed to Fore!
Augusta, PGA Tour, the USGA, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, the PGA of America,
and the LPGA Tour for various golf programs.
Fore! Augusta is the local
First Tee chapter.
"The Augusta community
is a tremendous asset to the Masters, and the various golf organizations have
the expertise to make informed decisions regarding where best these donations
can be used," Johnson said.
MUSICAL
CHAIRS
Not long ago, the JAL Big
Apple Classic was mentioned as a possible major women's championship pending
the demise of the du Maurier Classic. Now, it is looking for a new title sponsor
after Japan Airlines said it was bailing out.
LPGA Tour commissioner
Ty Votaw said JAL's departure had to do with the Japanese economy, and that the
tour still has two years' left on its contract with GOLF magazine, which owns
the event.
"Fans can rest assured
that we will keep this a premiere event on the LPGA Tour," said Bob Schwartz,
vice president and marketing director of GOLF magazine Properties.
Meanwhile, the tour is
looking for another home for The Office Depot in south Florida because Ibis Golf
and Country Club in West Palm Beach chose not to renew its contract. Officials
are hopeful of finding a replacement by the end of the month.
NICKLAUS
& SON
Jack Nicklaus and son Gary
will be playing in New Orleans this week, their third PGA Tour event together
this year.
The next one might be the
Memorial Tournament.
Gary considers the Memorial
"as close to a major as it gets." He was 7 when his dad started the tournament
and grew up as familiar with Muirfield Village as most people are with Augusta
National.
"I probably want to play
in that tournament more than any out here," Gary said this year.
Gary recently applied for
a sponsor's exemption and likely will get one -- with no help from his father.
The Memorial always invites
two players who earned their PGA Tour cards for the first time, either through
Q-school or by finishing in the top 15 on the Nike Tour money list.
The top player from that
category currently is Matt Gogel, who is 27th on the money list. No. 2 on the
list is Nicklaus, who is 48th on the money list thanks to his runner-up finish
to Phil Mickelson in the rain-shortened BellSouth Classic.
Nicklaus is only $11,040
ahead of Edward Fryatt.
DIVOTS
Prize money in the St.
Jude Classic is going from $2.8 million to $3 million, making it the ninth PGA
Tour event to raise its purse since November. ... The USGA has accepted a record
8,457 entries for the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, an increase of 568 from last
year. Sixty-eight players are exempt from qualifying. ... While Hal Sutton has
won twice in a year in which he turns 42, he's not the oldest player to enjoy
a multiple-win season. That belongs to Julius Boros, who was 48 when he won twice
in 1968. ... Casey Martin got two doses of good news last week. He was chosen
one of the 50 most eligible bachelors by People Magazine, and he was selected
a Champions Choice to play in the Colonial. ... Davis Love Jr. has been selected
to receive the second annual Harvey Penick Teaching Award for the game's most
outstanding teachers. Philips Electronics will posthumously honor Love, who was
killed in a 1988 plane crash, at its LPGA event in Austin, Texas, this week.
... The Buy.com Tour is adding another event -- the Monterey Peninsula Classic
at the Bayonet Course in Seaside, Calif. It will be played the final week in
September, bumping the Inland Empire Open back two weeks.
STAT OF
THE WEEK
Karrie Webb, who has earned
$650,878, has won 12.3 percent of the total purse from the LPGA Tour events she
has played this year. Tiger Woods, with $3,415,731, has won 10.9 percent of the
total purse from his PGA Tour events.
FINAL WORD
"Bernhard and I play a
similar game. I just do it in half the time.'' - Colin Montgomerie, on whether
he would have to adjust to Bernhard Langer's caddie. Montgomerie's caddie is
on his honeymoon.
