Nine Holes With Davis Love

If we look at The Sand Trap .com’s list of “Best Players to Have Won Only One Major” we’ll find one Davis Love III. He is a consistent and fundamentally sound player whose overall success has been hampered by injury the last few years. Look for Love III to win again… soon.

This week, we walk half a round with “The Love Monster,” a nickname I’ve just now created for him. Join us…

Hole 1
The Sand Trap Staff had the opportunity of playing Davis Love III’s Anderson Creek in Spring Lake, North Carolina last October at the Newport Cup. Anderson Creek is a Davis Love III signature course, and Davis, born in Charlotte, NC and educated at the University of North Carolina, has close ties to the area despite living in Sea Island, GA.

Hole 2
Love III has won 18 PGA Tour events including one Major, the 1997 PGA Championship. However, he hasn’t won since 2003, a year in which he won four times.

Hole 3
At 6’3″ he is one of the longest drivers on Tour, averaging 305.4 yards per drive in 2005. His accuracy isn’t as great as his reach: he managed to hit only 57.9% of fairways. By comparison, Tiger Woods averaged 316.1 yards and 54.6%.

Hole 4
“When he likes something,” said Love III’s buddy Brad Faxon, “he becomes an authority on it.” Faxon got him into cigars and he is apparently quite the expert on them. He was featured in a 2005 article by Cigar Aficionado.

Hole 5
Love III was 13th on the money list in 2005, earning $2,658,779. His desire to win will keep him in the top 15 again in 2006. Chris DiMarco, also winless in 2005, finished in seventh with $3,562,548.

Hole 6
Davis’ wife, Robin, gave him a specially commissioned Orange County Chopper’s bike for his 40th birthday, the Davis Love III Bike.

Hole 7
Davis’ father, Davis Love Jr., introduced him to the game and passed on a fundamentally sound swing. Love II was a well known instructor and PGA Pro before he was killed in a plane crash in 1988. Love Jr. contended at the 1964 Masters which was won by Arnold Palmer.

Hole 8
A problem with one of the disks in his neck has caused numbness in his left arm and fingers. This ongoing neck injury has held Davis Love III back for nearly five years.

Hole 9
Davis gave Michael Jordan his first set of golf clubs in college. It remains unreported how much the two have wagered through the years, as they remain close friends.

Photo Credit: © Andrew Davis Tucker/Augusta Chronicle.