Duval, undaunted by 83, gets back into the game

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Nobody this side of Arnold Palmer ever smiled so much shooting an 83.

David Duval was thrilled to be playing golf again, and the fans at Shinnecock Hills who cheered him at every turn made him feel like a king Thursday in the U.S. Open.

Never mind that he spent most of his round in grass up to his knees. It got so bad on the front nine that Duval had to take an unplayable lie from the rough on consecutive holes. When he chopped out from the left rough to the right rough and eventually made double bogey on the 18th hole, he had an 83 to match his worst score as a professional.

And the applause only got louder.

“If he had played how they rooted for him, he would have done very well,” Scott Hoch said.

Duval returned to competition for the first time in seven months, bringing an untested game to the toughest test in golf. The result was predictable, but that’s not how Duval kept score.

“There’s some kinks to work out and some rust to get rid of,” he said. “But at least I did a lot of things I wanted to do today. And most importantly, I enjoyed being out there. All in all, I would call it an enormous victory for me today.”

The last time anyone saw Duval at a major, he shot 80 in the first round of the PGA Championship in August, withdrew from the tournament and a short time later vanished from the PGA Tour. Some of it was his health. Most of it was his confidence. He became a shattered shell of a guy who was No. 1 in the world five years ago and a British Open champion in 2001.

Judging strictly on his performance, not much has changed. Based on his demeanor, he looked like a new man. During his time away, Duval married and found happiness at home in Denver with a wife and her three children.

“I stand here a blessed man,” he said. “What’s happened to me in the last six to eight months is far greater than anything I’ve ever done for the last 10 years around here.”

Tiger again struggles off the tee

The early morning conditions were perfect for scoring in the first round of the U.S. Open. The wind, usually a factor at Shinnecock Hills, barely moved the flags.

Sure enough, one of the first-round leaders came from Tiger Woods’ group. But it was not Woods, who shot a 4-under-par 66. It was Shigeki Maruyama.

Woods was six shots behind, coming in at 2-over 72. It was a missed opportunity.

As has been the case all year, Woods struggled off the tee, hitting only five of 14 fairways. As has also been the case, Woods found reasons other than his swing to account for the errant shots.

“I drove it all right,” Woods said. “I hit probably three poor drives. I lost them to the right. But other than that, I really hit some good shots that didn’t end up in the fairway. They got some bad bounces. It’s just the nature of the golf course.”

Furyk gets to defend title, after all

Jim Furyk didn’t know if he would get the chance to defend his U.S. Open title.

In January, an MRI revealed torn cartilage in his left wrist and he decided to have surgery to repair it. His first competitive round of golf since then was at Shinnecock Hills in the U.S. Open.

He shot a 2-over 72, not good enough to be among the leaders but good enough to make him sound optimistic about the rest of the week.

“I just didn’t get the ball in the hole and I made some poor decisions out there. That’ll happen. It’ll come,” he said. “I’ll be back tomorrow to grind it out and try to put some of those putts in.”