David Duval a puzzle on way to missing cut

A throwaway round began disastrously, yet somehow ended magnificently. Not enough to keep him around for the weekend, it would have been enough to make most players smile.

Not the enigma in the wraparounds.

He turned his back on reporters wondering why, opened a clubhouse door for his wife and headed for a locker room he may not see again for quite some time.

Duval didn't want to talk about the double bogey on the first hole, or the 10 on the second that tied the Masters record for highest score on the hole. He didn't want to explain how he could follow that with a back-nine 32 that was so good it could have easily been a 28 or 29.

Maybe it's because he doesn't understand it himself.

No one else seems to, either.

Not even Phil Mickelson, who usually understands everything.

"It's just hard for me to visualize him at anything but his best," Mickelson said. "I can't understand what's going on because he has a lot of game."

That game was nowhere to be seen Thursday when Duval shot a 12-over 84 in a first round that included four double bogeys. And he looked like a weekend hacker who somehow got lucky enough to play Augusta National when he hit trees, penalty stakes, a bunker and other assorted objects on the second hole before making a quintuple bogey.

For those keeping score at home, that's 19 over in 20 holes.

For those rooting at home, Duval played the last 16 holes in 4-under.

So how could a player once considered the best in the world be so bad, then so good? How could the man who finished second here four years ago miss the cut by 11 shots? How could the former No. 1 be the current No. 437?

With Duval not talking, let's check in with his dad.

"He was ready to play and just had a train wreck," said Bob Duval, who sometimes plays the senior tour when not walking with his son. "I think he was working on something the first two holes."

Nice try, but swing changes alone can't explain this.

Maybe it's time somebody called a shrink.

Duval has always been a brooding, moody player, even in his prime when he won nine tournaments in two years and edged ahead of Woods in the world rankings. He could get away with it in good times, not when the going got tough.

Duval hasn't won since he shed the label of best player not to win a major by winning the 2001 British Open, a victory that earned him a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour and into the Masters that few thought he would ever need.

"I don't know if I can savor this any more than I do now," he said at the time. "I imagine what it would do is intensify my desire to do it again."

It hasn't, and now time is beginning to run out.

He's dealt with back problems and vertigo, and took long stretches away from golf to work on his swing. He got married, became a father, stopped trying to become a bodybuilder, and kept trying to find a swing.

Mostly, though, he's kept hitting the ball sideways.

He did it again Friday, hitting it in the left trees off the tee on the first hole, and again on the second. Then, inexplicably, Duval started hitting it down the middle and close to the pin and didn't stop until he put a short iron 10 feet from the cup on the 18th hole.

Through it all, the good and the bad, his expression never changed.

If Duval cared, it didn't show. If he was simply going through the motions, that didn't show, either.

"He would be a very good poker player," playing partner Larry Mize said.

Duval should have the wherewithal to pursue that career if he wants. He's made more than $16 million on the golf course, and millions more from endorsement deals signed when he was in his prime.

At the age of 34 he surely has years of golf left, but he's missed the cut in five of eight tournaments this year and the $56,000 or so and change he's earned wouldn't be enough to fill the tank of his buddy Tiger Woods' private jet.

Worse yet, when he did talk earlier this year, he sounded conflicted about what he wanted to accomplish in the game.

"People who play the sport are viewed differently, more as entities than people," Duval said. "Their desires and goals should be about winning, and I guess I bought into it a little bit. But I've always just wanted to see how good I could be, and who knows what that measurement should be?"

Duval isn't about sound bites or throwaway quotes like Woods. He tends to overanalyze things, and when he talks it doesn't always come out the way he means.

That's no reason to run from his fans or the media, but Duval runs anyway.

He may come back to play well once again. He may flame out completely.

No one knows. Not Duval. Not those who watch him play.

He remains an enigma wrapped in wraparounds.