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The Week: Loving Life

A new attitude and a lift from the Tour's top putter helped Davis Love III win for the first time in two years

By Alan Shipnuck

Love, the 54-hole leader, has had difficulty closing but this time cashed in. Robert Back

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There is no better example of the doomed p.r. efforts of the Champions tour than Fuzzy Zoeller's disqualification from the Royal Caribbean Classic. By hitting shots during an on-air lesson with a TV reporter after Round 1, Zoeller violated a rule prohibiting practice between rounds on a tournament course. On the bright side, someone was watching.

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Davis Love III enjoys his creature comforts. His home in St. Simons Island, Ga., includes a stable of 10 horses, a fleet of waverunners, boats and four-wheelers and a wine cellar. Life is so good at home that Love admits he has become "a little sloppy, a little lazy." He was able to rationalize his sloth because of disk problems that, off and on since 1999, have led to pain up and down his back and numbness in his fingers. "It's nice when you have a back problem or a neck problem," says Love, "and you can say, 'Well, I can't practice today because I have to rest up.'"

By the end of last year's ho-hum season, Love had only one victory since the spring of 1998 and, despite his breakthrough at the '97 PGA Championship, had largely been a nonfactor in the majors. A popular parlor game among the golf cognoscenti had become the debate over who has gotten less out of more talent, Love or his close friend Fred Couples.

This off-season Love finally got off the couch. He invited Bob Rotella to St. Simons Island and spent two days scribbling the sports psychologist's observations on yellow legal pads "like my dad always wrote notes on." Love also showed more diligence about working out and stretching to keep his back sound.

Love made a solid debut this year at the Hope (12th) and last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am said, "I've come out this year feeling better, feeling stronger and with a new commitment to working on my attitude and my routines." Love always says things like this at the start of a new season, but this time he seemed to mean it, adding, "I'm going to try to get better rather than holding ground."

Importantly, at Pebble Beach, Love enjoyed the comforts of a home away from home. He stayed by Pebble's 1st tee at the home of Jim Griggs, who has been something of a father figure to him since Love's own father died in 1988. He felt even more comfortable when he was paired with Brad Faxon for the first three rounds. Even without working at it, Love has always possessed one of golf's most awe-inspiring long games, but he is a mechanical, uneven putter who will be forever haunted by a three-putt on the 72nd hole that cost him the 1996 U.S. Open. Harvey Penick, one of Love's mentors, liked to say, "Go to dinner with good putters." Faxon has been a frequent guest at Love's St. Simons compound.

With all that good mojo, it's no wonder Love opened the tournament with a 72 but rebounded with a 67 at Pebble Beach on Friday, then another 67 at Spyglass on Saturday to take a two-stroke lead. Over the last five years Love has gone 0 for 6 in protecting 54-hole leads, a measure of his softness. On Sunday he coughed up the lead by bogeying two of Pebble's easiest holes, numbers 2 and 3.

But then, uncharacteristically, Love fought back. He birdied Pebble's epic stretch of ocean-side par-4s -- the 8th, 9th and 10th. Tied with Tom Lehman coming to 18, Love hit a monster drive that left him 224 yards to the pin, and he summoned one of the best shots of his career, a four-iron that cozied within 10 feet of the hole. A clutch two-putt birdie brought Love his 15th Tour victory.

Afterward he said, "I was as nervous as I have ever been playing a round of golf." That's a good thing, because it shows he really wants to win. For all the time he has frittered away, Love is only 38, and he knows it's not too late to enjoy a second prime. "It's time to start chasing my ability, to see how much I can improve, see how good I can be," he says.

O.B.

Phil Mickelson sparked a firestorm last week when he was quoted in Golf Magazine as saying that Tiger Woods's equipment is "inferior." Nike is fighting back with a whisper campaign insinuating that other manufacturers are supplying their PGA Tour players with illegal drivers that exceed USGA-mandated limits for springlike effect. Nike is also calling for on-site testing at Tour events to ferret out nonconforming drivers. "It's like having a speed limit but no police to enforce it," says Kel Devlin, Nike's director of sports marketing for golf. Testing rival drivers he says he has procured on Tour driving ranges, Devlin has seen a spike this year in the number of illegal drivers. "They are from a variety of manufacturers," he says, adding that every Nike driver is tested before it is sent to a Tour player to ensure that it is conforming. (Other clubmakers also make this claim.) "I would like to think the players aren't aware of the problem, but given the numbers, it makes you wonder." The PGA Tour has made it clear that this is the USGA's turf -- the blue coats already spot-check balls -- but David Fay, the executive director of the USGA, tells SI, "I don't think there's a problem with usage of nonconforming clubs by the best players." Asked specifically about the USGA's instituting on-site testing, Fay says, "I don't anticipate setting up shop ... and having players bring their clubs in for checking, like they would at a lacrosse game. If there's an issue on nonconforming clubs, if there's buzz that player X is magically hitting increased yardage, I still think peer pressure would be more effective."

Mickelson's outgoing 45 on Sunday -- he finished with an 80 -- was a stroke shy of the worst nine of his career (2000 Players Championship).

Billy Casper, the three-time major champion who in recent years had begun to look like Buddha, dropped 63 pounds in advance of his Jan. 27 hip replacement surgery, and he's not done yet. Down to 237 pounds thanks to a high-protein, low-carb diet, Casper's goal is an even 200. "We're to a point where we can't take my slacks in much more," he says. "When I lose another 40 pounds, I'll get some new clothes." That would include a new green jacket for the winner of the 1970 Masters so that he can attend the past-champions' dinner at Augusta in style. "A couple of years ago I had to use Craig Stadler's," he says.

The upside to a recession? Tee times at Pebble Beach Golf Links are available as soon as Feb. 17.

The winners of the season's first five Tour events have a combined 54 career victories, the most since 1984, when Tom Watson, John Mahaffey, Tom Purtzer, Gary Koch and Hale Irwin took the first five titles and combined for 59 career wins. This year's first five are also all in their 30s, which last occurred in '84.

Issue date: February 17, 2003

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