Duval takes his rightful place on top of the world

If golf's in your genes, it will out. David Duval's elevation to world number one - a consequence of his win in the Tournament Players Championship at Sawgrass - was inevitable, or so the other players on the US Tour have been proclaiming.

Certainly, Duval's pedigree suggested that he was destined for great things and, so, the little white lie in the statistics that kept him behind Tiger Woods was finally corrected with his win on Sunday.

Indeed, the Duvals are pretty much the first family of golf these days. A couple of hours before David tied up the TPC his father Bob was in winning mode too when taking the Emerald Coast Classic, his first tournament victory on the US Seniors Tour. Ironically, when Bob made his Senior Tour debut on a sponsor's invitation at the Transamerica in 1996, he had David acting as caddie. The son was otherwise occupied on Sunday.

David Duval has been on an unending upward graph since earning record prizemoney as a rookie on the tour in 1995. The purists reckon he moves his head too much and has too tight a grip - but the 27-year-old has now won $8 million in less than four years on the US Tour and his win at Sawgrass was his third success of the season. He'd already captured the Mercedes and the Bob Hope Classic (where he shot a closing round 59) and he has now won 10 times in his last 33 outings.

Born into a golfing family, his grandfather, the late Hap Duval, was a life member of the PGA of America and his father, Bob spent the majority of his pre-Senior Tour career in north Florida as the head professional at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville and The Plantation at Ponte Vedra Beach. In fact, he was voted that state's teacher of the year back in 1992 David's rise to the number one spot is testimony to that early coaching.

David came from good golfing stock - and the double win by father and son was the first such occurrence on the US Tour. Bob was a wire-to-wire winner of the Emerald Coast and had received a good luck phone call from his son the previous evening which, he claimed: "allowed me to get the monkey off my back". As things turned out, it was David who needed to steady the ship in Sunday's final round. He was informed on the 14th tee box that his dad had won and promptly went bogey-bogey. Standing on the tee at the infamous 17th to an island green, Duval had a one shot lead over Scott Gump but proceeded to play the shot of the round, a wedge to six feet for birdie.

Incidentally, Duval's total of three-under-par 285 was the highest winning score since the TPC moved to Sawgrass in 1982. However, his cheque for $900,000 brought his season's earnings to $2,148,300 and moved him back to the top of the US moneylist.

Duval's win meant he became the first player since Tom Watson to earn at least three wins in a season in consecutive years (Watson actually had three wins in a season for six consecutive years from 1977 to 1982).

It's all a contrast to his early professional days. Duval turned professional after earning the Collegiate Player of the Year award in 1993 but missed out at tour school on two successive occasions and slogged it out on the Nike Tour before winning his full card for the 1995 season. A month before the end of the 1997 season he was known as a seven-time runner-up who couldn't finish the job. Not any longer. Since he won the Michelob Championship in October 1997, Duval has won 10 times and he now seems almost unstoppable.

Duval, the new 6 to 1 favourite for the US Masters, has decided to stay competitive this week and will compete in the BellSouth at the TPC at Sugarloaf in Duluth, Georgia in preparation for the Masters. Europe's top players have adopted different approaches. Colin Montgomerie, Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo have decided to play in the BellSouth but Lee Westwood, sixth behind Duval in Sawgrass, has headed off for a few days break in the Bahamas.

It is a different story for Clarke. Last year's European number two is still ill at ease with his game and stayed on in Sawgrass to practise. Last year, Clarke was 157-under-par for the season in finishing second to Montgomerie in the European moneylist - but, so far this season, he is a total of 55over-par for the tournaments he has played.