Twenty Years Later

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Twenty years on, the glow remains for David Duval.

In a confluence of fate, family and fortune, Duval and his father, Bob, won golf tournaments on the same early-spring Sunday, David capturing the Players Championship while his father won the PGA Tour Champion’s Emerald Coast Classic about 350 miles south.

That would have been enough but it was more than that.

It was Bob Duval’s first and only Champions tour victory while for David, the victory pushed him to No. 1 in the world rankings, moving out Tiger Woods, winning a tournament he had attended since he was a child.

“It means as much as any tournament I’ve ever won,” David Duval said.

Duval is at the Players Championship this week, working as an analyst for Golf Channel, extending the arc of his involvement with what was his hometown event.

Growing up, Duval would attend the Players, watching Seve Ballesteros, José María Olazábal and others, often sitting on the back of the practice range, while his father worked in a scoring tent.

An 18-year old in 1990, Duval played in the Players Championship – both unofficially and briefly.

The 36-hole cut left an uneven number of players and Duval was summoned to play as a marker with Joey Sindelar. They made it five holes before another player withdrew and Duval was replaced by the other Tour player.

“I was 1-under through five, I remember that,” Duval said recently.

In 1999, Duval had already won two Tour events – the Mercede...