David Duval remembers his dominant nine-stroke win at Kapalua in 1999

Editor’s note: In 1999, the PGA TOUR moved its tournament designed for the previous year’s champions – the Mercedes Championships – from California’s La Costa Resort and Spa to the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii. David Duval won four 1998 tournaments, earning him the right to play in that inaugural Kapalua tournament. A current member of PGA TOUR Champions, Duval fondly remembers that week when he simply dominated the field.

At La Costa Resort and Spa in 1998, I was a stroke behind Phil Mickelson going into the final round of what was then called the Mercedes Championships (now The Sentry) – a 30-player field for winners from the previous season. I didn’t play well on the last day, shooting a 1-over 73 and dropping into a tie for sixth. I never had a chance for a do-over at La Costa as the TOUR moved the 1999 Mercedes Championships to The Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui.

I arrived in Hawaii having never played the course before. I had never even seen it, but everything about my first visit to Kapalua was memorable, from my week-long stay at The Ritz-Carlton Maui to the incredible Hawaii weather and how welcoming all the fans and volunteers were.

Of course, it’s always a nice memory when you finish the week with a win. Yet, even with the victory, the week had an element of disappointment.

I went into the final round holding a comfortable five-shot lead over Fred Funk. Fred quickly narrowed my lead to three shots through five holes after I got off to a bit of a slow start, with four pars and a bogey. I was intent on not having a second consecutive poor Sunday in this tournament.

I did get things rolling after that, and Fred’s birdie on No. 5 was his final one of the day. I kept hitting good shots and slowly pulled away from Fred and the other contenders, who were within shouting distance of me through 54 holes – Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk and Billy Mayfair. None was able to cut into my advantage.

But here’s the disappointment: Mayfair, playing in the group ahead of me, had finished the tournament, posting a 17-under score. By that time, I was at 25-under after making birdies at Nos. 14, 16 and 17. I had basically locked up the tournament with only the par-5 18th left to play.

After hitting a nice drive up the middle of the fairway on the closing hole, I hit a 3-wood approach on the green to what I would call roughly 20 feet, maybe 22 feet. I had that left for an eagle. A lag putt would give me a two-putt birdie, yet 25 years later, I can say now that I wanted to make that eagle putt as much as I wanted to make any putt ever. An eagle at the last would have given me a 10-stroke win, a double-digit victory. Nine is a great margin, but it’s not 10, and I had never had one of those. To me, a 10-shot win is total dominance, a beatdown.

I think about victory margins every once in a while because I’ve had to tell people that while I tied for eighth at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach – a decent showing – I got beat by 19 strokes.

That’s why, with the victory no longer in doubt, a double-digit win became important to me. Make an eagle was my thinking as I faced that putt on the 72nd hole.

Unfortunately, my putt came up short, leaving me to tap in for birdie and a 266 total of 26-under, nine strokes better than Mayfair and Mark O’Meara. It was a convincing victory, but I only won by nine.

I can’t say I was that surprised by how I played that week, even on a new course. I just played and tried to do the best I could. Golf can be a pretty simple game when the golf ball is going where you want it to go. I was playing solid that week, and the ball simply went where I planned it to go.

After the win, I took a week off and went skiing. I returned to action the following week in the California desert at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (now The American Express). In a five-round tournament in Palm Springs, I again finished at 26-under, winning that tournament by a stroke over Steve Pate. That was a great year for me because all my wins came back-to-back. A couple of months later, I went to THE PLAYERS Championship and won at TPC Sawgrass to move to No. 1 in the world for the first time. I then turned around and won the following week in Atlanta at TPC Sugarloaf.

I don’t think many people would think of that BellSouth Classic win in Atlanta as one of my most important wins. Still, in many ways there was a professional satisfaction because I ascended to No. 1 at THE PLAYERS and then won again the next week, validating my position. That season, of course, all started at Kapalua, where I got my year off to a great start, making 29 birdies and only three bogeys.

Still, I would have gladly traded one of those birdies for an eagle.