The Week: Rumors Ruin A Great Year

Davis Love III's best season on the course has been his worst off it

By Gary Van Sickle

After his fourth victory of 2003, Love defended his wife. William R. Sallaz GOLF PLUS EXTRA Big Play: Mike Lopuszynski TRUST ME Jan Stephenson isn't playing in the Oct. 10-12 Turtle Bay Championship to generate interest in the Champions tour or break gender barriers. Always a self-promoter, she's simply desperate for attention. NEXT UP PGA Tour: PGA Championship Champions Tour: Long Island Classic LPGA Tour: Jamie Farr Kroger Classic PGA European Tour: BMW Russian Open INSTANT POLL Which 2003 major was the best? The Masters The U.S. Open The British Open The PGA View Results

Davis Love III, at 39, is enjoying the best season of his 18-year career, with four wins by mid-August and one shot remaining to win a major -- this week's PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club, in Rochester, N.Y. Love's latest W, at the International, was his 18th on Tour and his most dominating. He led wire-to-wire at Castle Pines, and his 12-point margin of victory over runners-up Retief Goosen and Vijay Singh is the largest in the event's history.

"Davis hammered everybody," said Mike Hulbert, a part-time Tour player who worked the tournament as an announcer for the USA Network. "I felt it was over after one round -- one round! -- when Davis scored 19 points on Thursday in windy conditions. Then he comes right back the next day and makes three eagles in 10 holes."

The win vaulted Love to the top of the Tour's 2003 money list with $5.1 million, gave him $25.1 million in career earnings (only Tiger Woods, with $37.9 million, has made more) and made him, after Jim Furyk and Mike Weir, the next leading contender for the player of the year award. Additionally, Love is now in position to have the kind of dominant season that only Woods (with eight, nine, five and five wins, respectively, since 1999) and Nick Price (six in '94) have had in the last two decades. Love isn't riding a hot streak. He's been at a consistently high level all year, thanks to drives that now go long and straight.

Love's best year has also been his most troubled, however. During his postround interview with CBS on Sunday, Love, his voice choking with emotion, stared into the TV camera and dedicated the win to his wife, Robin. "Things are going to get better for you and me, and this is going to pass," Love said. "I love you."

There were many reasons for Love's emotional outburst. In May his brother-in-law and business manager, Jeffrey Knight, committed suicide after learning that an FBI investigation had determined that he had embezzled about $1 million from Love. More recently Love has had to cope with scurrilous rumors about his wife.

"It's been tough to have this in the middle of my best year," Love said at his press conference on Sunday evening. "To have these crazy, vicious things said about her that are untrue -- on top of the death of her brother -- is not fair. She's been very strong and has had to pick up the pieces for her family and for our businesses so I could keep going. I wanted to dedicate the win to her because if I didn't know everything was fine at home, I couldn't come out and play this well. I've had friends say, 'You're not going to believe what they're saying about you.'"

A couple of hours later Love addressed the malevolent gossip more specifically. "There were rumors about Robin's infidelity, our marriage breaking up, her being arrested for indecent exposure on a beach, using drugs," Love told SI. "You can pretty much make up anything you want, because I've heard about every rumor imaginable. This same thing happened when I was playing well in 1992. I had a chance to talk about it on national television, so I couldn't pass it up. I had had enough."

The air needed to be cleared, Love said, so he could focus on the PGA. He's had enough of rumors, but the new favorite to win the PGA -- and the player of the year award that would come with it -- hasn't had enough of winning. Not even close.

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