Love hopes wins start rolling in
The victories are coming at a slower rate than Davis Love III would like, but at least they're still coming.
The Sea Island, Ga., resident had 14 career wins after the 2001 season, but didn't win again until 2003. That year, he won four times and seemed back on his way.
He wasn't. It took more than three years for Love to win for the 19th time on the tour. It came in the Greensboro Classic last year.
"It was a big relief and hopefully the start of bigger things to come," said Love, who won the tournament at Forest Oaks Country Club, a course he redesigned in 2003.
Love doesn't plan to be stuck on 19 for very long.
"It would be nice to get to 20, but it would be nice to get to 21, too," he said. "So I don't think it is really that big a deal. I'd like to get to 30 before I get too creaky. I think that's a better number than 20. A lot of guys have gotten to 20."
Still, only 36 players have reached 20 wins. And golfers who ended their PGA Tour careers with 19 wins include Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite, two of Love's mentors when he joined the tour in 1986.
If Love reaches 20, he'll tie such stars as Greg Norman and Hale Irwin.
Love has two runner-up finishes in the Masters, his favorite tournament. What a story it would be if his 20th win came this week at Augusta National Golf Club, where his father, Davis Love Jr., was a first-round co-leader in 1964.
"It would be nice to get anything at the Masters," Love said.
With a Masters win, Love would be halfway to a career grand slam (he won the 1997 PGA Championship).
"Augusta and the British Open are at the top of my list. I'd like to win one of each (majors); that's the goal. I've certainly got a little time, but not a lot," said Love, who turns 43 five days after the end of this year's Masters.
Love admits he got caught up in trying to make a record seventh Ryder Cup team last year, saying the pressure he put on himself was a "detriment" to his play.
"I made making the team such a big deal that it took over my golf life. It became bigger than what it really was," he said.
Had Love made the team, he would have been the first U.S. player to make seven Ryder Cup teams (Jack Nicklaus played in six Ryder Cups; so has Phil Mickelson).
"I was playing for the record," Love said. "I wanted to make seven so I can make eight, rather than just playing the game and trying to be playing well when I got to the Ryder Cup."
During the season, Love assured Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman that he would start playing better at some point. Unfortunately, that time came in early October at Greensboro, six weeks after the team was picked.
At Greensboro, Love put the Ryder Cup chase behind him and concentrated on the task at hand. That process actually started the week after the Ryder Cup team was determined, when Love tied for fourth place in the Bridgestone Invitational.
In his next start, five weeks later, Love won at Greensboro.
"I didn't pay as much attention to what everybody else was doing, and I talked to my daughter and her horse trainer about the way they were riding their horse at the Nationals," he said. "I was telling them they were worried about what everybody else is doing and expectations and things that didn't matter."
Looking back on it now, Love knows he went about trying to make the Ryder Cup team "in the wrong way" by putting too much pressure on himself.
"(Even) if you've been out here 20 years, you're not too old to learn new tricks," he said.
Reach David Westin at (706) 823-3224 or david.westin@augustachronicle.com.
