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Editor's Note: This is the 10th in a series of 12 vignettes about memorable moments in the history of THE PLAYERS Championship. The 2007 event will be played May 10-13 on THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.

The hottest player in the world was also the neighborhood kid who won his backyard tournament at the 1999 PLAYERS Championship.

David Duval holds his trophy after winning THE PLAYERS in 1999.

Five years ago, Jacksonville's David Duval won in a magical week on a tremendously difficult Stadium Course. It came in a tournament that he began attending as a pre-teen in the early 1980s and "dreamed and thought about" winning. His father, Bob, assisted with the scoring for years and would always bring David a hat with a few autographs from the game's top players.

By 1999, Duval was on the cusp of being golf's No. 1 player. He had already fired a record-tying, final-round 59 in winning the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic two months before. Windy and cool conditions in Ponte Vedra Beach on the weekend made the golf course tremendously difficult -- "...like playing Augusta and the U.S. Open on the same day," Colin Montgomerie said.

Duval broke a final-round logjam at the top by holing a bunker shot for birdie on the par-5 ninth and playing a bold wedge shot into the island 17th green for a clinching birdie. Rounds of 74-73 on the weekend were good enough to go from one behind after 36 holes to two ahead at the finish.

The victory came on the same day as Bob won the Emerald Coast Classic on the Champions Tour. It also propelled David to a 14-week run as the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking.

"The people were just going nuts, and they helped to carry me today certainly," Duval said after his victory. "It was something I fed off of. I realized that there were thousands of people out there pulling for me to win this golf tournament and so I thought about that."