David Duval’s 2001 Open Championship winning speech: video
The last time The Open Championship was played at Royal Lytham and St.Annes in 2001, David Duval won by three shots from Denmark’s Niclas Fasth.
In the late 90s, David Duval was one guy doing his best to challenge Tiger Woods. He racked up a number of PGA Tour victories including the 1999 Players Championship and rose to number one in the World Golf Rankings.
At the 2000 Open Championship, he suffered a nightmare 17th hole which saw him take four shots to get out of the green-side bunker, and relinquish any chance of a second placing behind Woods. He bounced back the following year though to record victory and to date, his only major victory.
Throughout it all, Duval was generally considered to be a boring golfer that few fans took a liking to thanks largely to his very serious, and seemingly unfriendly on-course demeanour.
Duval’s victory speech (sorry for the poor video quality) from 2001 shows that looks can be deceiving that includes a wonderful little story about his first time at The Open Championship and his appreciation for golf and golf fans across the Atlantic.