THE INTERNATIONAL

August 10, 2003

Davis Love III

DAVIS LOVE III: Not all of them.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: I know you had a lot of fun out there this week.

DAVIS LOVE III: Yeah, obviously the first two rounds set the tournament up for me. All I had to do was play good on the weekend and that's what I did. I played great golf and then good golf on the weekend. But, you know, I did what I had to do and I made some birdies when I needed to. I didn't get the breaks, obviously, I got the first two days with the putts falling like they did, but I never put myself in much trouble and hung in there real good.

So I'm still happy with the way I'm hitting it. I went up on the range the last couple of nights and hit balls. I'm thrilled with the way I'm swinging, and a lot of it is, a different kind of pressure this weekend. There's a big lead and a lot riding on it for me, as far as my year is concerned and I really wanted to play a good, solid weekend and that's what I did. I'm thrilled with it, even though I didn't get the 50 point record.

Q. You went in today with such a large margin ahead of everyone, you had the largest winning margin in history, the other record breaking efforts were not set with such a large margin, did that affect your mindset today?

DAVIS LOVE III: I think on the weekend, it played harder. The wind was definitely tricky today, and the greens got faster on the weekend. Everybody was commenting, even this morning, talking about how much faster the greens were. I guess because of the heat and the wind and because they had less guys playing, they got them a little bit faster. But it certainly played harder, tougher pins. I think it showed that nobody really had a real hot weekend like I did the first two days. It seems like you always see somebody put up 30 points on the weekend and come roaring up, it just didn't happen this year. I think it played pretty tough.

Q. How important were the three birdies on the first four holes when John missed a couple birdie chances early?

DAVIS LOVE III: I knew I had to get off to a real good start and obviously coming off the British Open, `I knew if I got off to a real good start the first five or six holes, I could win the golf tournament and I didn't do it. That was the challenge for me, was to get off to a good start and I didn't hit a good drive at 1, but I made a nice putt there and a nice par at 3 and hit a real good shot at 4. I really hit the ball solidly right out of the box all the way through. I had missed the green at 7 with a good shot and kind of pulled my second shot at 8, but I really hit the ball well starting off, and that's all I felt like I had to do, I felt like, was get a few birdies, get on the board and not be putting pressure on myself. That was important, especially the putt on the first hole. That was an important putt.

Q. Winning must be a nice feeling for you, but the way you did it, setting the records you did along the way, that has to be today feel good, too.

DAVIS LOVE III: Yeah, it does. I've won several different ways this year. Maybe once when Ernie or somebody else should have won. It's nice to come out and lead a golf tournament the whole way through and see what that feels like. You prepare yourself to win, but sometimes you don't prepare yourself for every eventuality think. I didn't prepare myself to be ahead that long the whole way. It's a new kind of experience for me, or really for anybody to have that big of a lead all the way through. Hopefully I'll get through or four shots ahead at the PGA next week and know what it feels like and I'll be able to handle it a little bit better than I did this week.

Q. Speaking of the PGA, your fourth win of the year, does that give you a big leg up in the Player of the Year race or does it come down to next week?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, if I didn't win next week and then won two World Golf Championships and a TOUR Championship, I think it would be hard to argue. If a guy wins the money title and THE PLAYER Championship and a bunch of other tournaments, it might be hard to argue.

I've always been a voter and not the guy really in the running. Maybe I've been on the ballot once. I always vote for guys in the major championships. I feel like that's the standard, a guy wins a great year, he wins a major championship and some other golf tournament, and I think the player is pushed right up there behind the majors, and I'm sure that will come into people's considerations, especially the players.

If I was to win the PGA next week, you could say it was over; or if Tiger wins the PGA, you could say, well, there's your Player of the Year, five wins with a major. But we've got a long way to go. I'm going to play hard every week the rest of the year and see what happens.

Q. So you had to vote today, who would your vote go for?

DAVIS LOVE III: Without the PGA in there? I'd probably have to vote for Mike Weir, Masters and three wins. But it's barely half the season, so it's maybe not fair, but that's quite an accomplishment that he put together.

Q. You got a little choked up right after you won, talking to the television cameras, when you dedicated this victory to someone. Who did you dedicate the victory to, and given what you've gone through over the past three months, how important is this to you?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, it was real important because my friend, Joan, and CBS's people had been coaching me through this week, we talked about it in here earlier, crazy, unfounded rumors about my life. And on top of the death of her brother in law and her trying to pick up the whole family and support the whole family, not only my family, but her whole family, her sister and her kids and all that through the death of her brother in law. She's been very strong, not only to the family, but in our business because my brother in law ran our whole family office. She's had to pick up the pieces for her family and for our business and she's been very patient and supportive. I've been able to go back and play golf. It was a tough thing to have happen in the middle of my best year ever, and she picked up the pieces for me, so I could keep going and has supported me and taken care of the kids.

Now, as I said before, we're like a family of 7, and she's been really - it's been a strain for her, and then to have in the last two or three week, these crazy, vicious - I don't want to say too much - some really mean things said about her that are completely untrue, is just not fair because she's a good person. She's been great for our community and great for her friends and she's supportive to a fault. I don't know why people take advantage of her.

As friends of mine said, we don't give Robin Love enough credit, and this is before these rumors started. I think that statement pretty much said it all, that for some reason, she doesn't get enough credit for my success, for our family's success and for what she does at home. So for that reason, she wanted to be here, Joan wanted her to be here, I wanted her to be here, but we decided that it was the best thing for her to put the kids in school tomorrow morning and life go on as normal. I wish she would have been there on 18 green, but as I told her last night on the phone, I thought about it all day yesterday, and I missed that putt on the last hole because I was thinking about what I was going to say to Peter Kostis when I walked off the green. He said yesterday, "You go win and I'll tee up a question for you tomorrow." So that shows you, it's been the whole family, PGA TOUR family has been helping me through this week, from CBS, right through the staff, so I really appreciate it, and I need to get that out of the way today so I could go play the PGA Championship and then we can all forget about it.

Q. Will you go home or will you go straight to Rochester?

DAVIS LOVE III: She's going to come up to Rochester, maybe for two weeks. But she just felt like it was important to show our kids that no matter, hey, dad is winning golf tournaments or people are talking about us, we are normal school kids and you're going to school Monday morning and you're going to go to bed early. (Laughter.) That's hard enough on them, go to public school when their dad is famous and all that, and then have something piled on top of something that, that was really a tragedy to have this pile on top of, it just had not been fair for her. She's strong and that helps me deal and do my job.

Q. (Inaudible.)

DAVIS LOVE III: You know, a lot of this has happened after my first three wins. All of it has happened. But I've said that, to somebody, asked me that question, how are you playing so well with all of this going on and I said, I really don't know. It's a release for me to get out and play. It's obviously safer for me out here with my friends inside the ropes and outside the ropes.

I think I came out this year and said I was going to play hard every time I came out to play. If I didn't think I could win, I'd stay home. That's why I wanted to dedicate the win to her, because if I don't know everything was fine at home that she was handle it, I couldn't have come out and played well this week.

Q. Were these rumors broadcast anywhere?

DAVIS LOVE III: No. That's what what's so crazy about it. Every detail of any, you know, public scandal, is in the paper or is on TV. I mean, we are reading about all kind of crazy stuff that's happening in every sport, including ours. Every detail, I mean, details about my brother in law's death that I did not know, and I was there, were in the paper. The thing that's incredible is any of the stuff that was going on in my life it would be in the paper, it would be a pretty good story; it shows a lot of the class of the golf media, the people that have heard it, have not repeated it, written it down or broadcast it. I think that's what's so unfortunate is that people who know me and know my life, know that this stuff cannot be. It would be the front page of USA Today on top of all this stuff if it were true.

Q. Was it other players, or how did you hear about the rumors?

DAVIS LOVE III: I heard it first at home. We heard it first at home and then friends of mine that are out here playing called me and said, "You're not going to believe what people are saying." Then I came out, obviously, hear more as I discuss it with friends. They say, "Oh, yeah, you don't even know the half of it." That's why my friends, like Lance, Peter Kostis, Jim Nantz, Joan, Steve, have been helping me, coaching me through not only my golf this week, but what to say and when to say it.

Q. Sum up your year as far as your wins. This week you mentioned how well you are hitting and you had the good putting the first couple of days, how does the way you won this week compare to the other wins earlier?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, as I said they have all been different. I certainly putted incredibly well the first two days and basically won it with my putting the first two days.

At Pebble, I grounded it out. I didn't hit the ball great for four days but I got a lot out of my game. I putted very, very well, but I was scrambling. At THE PLAYERS Championship, I plays pretty steady and had two or three holes where I had a bad patch the first three days and played great on Sunday and then played a flawless round of golf on Sunday.

Hilton Head, I was just basically hanging in there and Ernie made a big mistake and I took advantage of it right at the end with a great chip in. I'll never forget that chip in. That was an incredible way to win a golf tournament. That was another milestone for me to come to a place where I know I should play well and know I should win more than once and to win it's easy when you get ahead but it's also hard to get you're in the locker room and guys are giving you a hard time: Where did you cut over; and what are you doing that we are not doing; and what tees are you playing from, all of the kidding you get. It's good natured but it's also pressure, saying, well, geez, they are all wondering when I'm going to wake up, so it was a nice challenge and it was nice to win.

Every time I come in, somebody would mention the record. Those records are great and they are meant to be broken, but winning the golf tournament was the main objective this week, no matter what, if I would have picked up on 16, I always wanted to win the golf tournament.

Q. You had three birdies your first four holes and then ran off a pretty long string of pars. From the outset, it looks like maybe you were trying to protect and not shooting for the pin itself. Did you have that mindset at all just to go for pars or what were you thinking?

DAVIS LOVE III: No, I felt like today I hit it more right at it than other days. Like I hit a great shot into 4. I got boned one in 2. The ground was hard and I bounced my wedge into the ball but I was trying to stick it in there close. Hit it right at it at 5. Hit it right at it at 7 but the wind got it, got just off the edge of the green. I was cutting the corners. I played to get it close to the hole at 9. I shot right at it at 10.

So I felt like I was going for it, trying to make birdies. I just kept leaving myself 15 or 20 footers with a lot of break like I did yesterday, and I wasn't trying to bomb them in there; I was just trying to nudge them up there to the hole, and if they fell in, great, and just keep making pars because really once I saw the way things were going, after four or five holes, the way John was playing, he was not playing didn't look comfortable. The guys ahead of us were not really doing anything, so I just felt like, keep hitting it in the fairway.

The only real disappointing hole that I didn't put it somewhere around the green at 8. I put it behind a tree. The only place I could not get it up and down was from behind the tree. So if I knock it on the green and make a birdie there, then I could have really relaxed the rest of the way.

Q. There are some people who did not play here this week because they said they did not want to play in altitude to prepare their game for the PGA, yet you came here, and what did this week do for you in preparation for the PGA?

DAVIS LOVE III: We've talked a lot about it. You go out there and it's going to be hilly and four rounds and you could have a delay and play a lot of holes on the weekend and things like that. I said, I'm going to go, enjoy the week and just play golf. I'm not going to go up top for two hours and pound balls. I limited myself to maybe a bag of balls after a round, and I'm just going to come in and enjoy the week as Vinnie Giles, my good friend said, put a pencil in hand and score, play the game and get ready for the PGA.

But also, when I was playing and practicing last weekend, I said to myself, you know, you don't do well enough at the INTERNATIONAL, you should do better. So I started actually thinking, I played a round of golf, I guess it was Saturday, I was at a horse show with my daughter and went out and played a round of golf and I played it like I would play The INTERNATIONAL, thinking I'm going to hit a whole bunch of different clubs off the tees, very important for me to get to the fairways and be aggressive into the greens and try to make a lot of birdies. I started formulating my game plan for this tournament because I think sometimes long hitters like me come out, and I watched a few guys, I'm not going to name any names do this week, and feel like they have to be aggressive, so they are just bombs away.

The golf course is firm, it's playing very fast, if you can get it in the fairway anywhere, it's 200 yard 8 irons. If you can get it in the fairway, you can get on the greens and get some birdie putts. You don't have to have sand wedge into greens. I did not have a lot of 9,8s and 7s in this altitude, and if you are swinging good, you can hit the ball close.

Q. What did you play on?

DAVIS LOVE III: I played a little course in Ocala, get away from watching horses go around.

Q. Nobody in the field even matched your 36 hole total this week. You've been in tournaments where guys ran away from the field and you've been on the other end, what was it like and what's the feeling like looking back in the rear view mirror?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, as I said, it's a different kind of pressure because you get so you feel like you're on such a roll and you get so far ahead, you don't know how to act almost. It's, how do I keep the hammer down and keep going; that's the challenge.

I played in the hardest wave in the first two days and got the best score. I think that's what put the distance between me and the field. The guys that I was playing with, like an Ernie Els in the same pairing or Greg Norman, the guys in my wave, I even had a bigger lead on them because I felt like it was two or three points harder in the wave we played in.

I don't know how to equate what shot lead that would have been after two days, but it's a cushion that you always want to get. You want to play the last round of a golf tournament like I did today, where nobody is I was nervous on the first tee, very nervous on the first tee because it's a tough tee shot, and I had seen a lot of balls go in funny places off that tee this week, and I was nervous on last hole because of what we talked about. I wasn't really concentrating on putting that last putt.

But I was pretty calm the rest of the day. I didn't talk to John a lot. I talked to my caddie a lot and we had fun. It was a very relaxed day and I knew the pressure was on me to not make mistakes and I was trying not to make mistakes.

I hit a couple tee shots that were pretty good that didn't go in great places and a couple second shots that were right on the edge of being great like 7 and 9, so I felt like I played a pretty aggressive game for the position I was in. I just didn't get a lot out of it.

Q. Given what happened last year with Lowery and Beem, were you surprised nobody made eagle or made any kind of charge at all?

DAVIS LOVE III: I think what some of the finishes we see here are just so incredibly thrilling that we don't appreciate how good they are. I think this year, like I said, the fairways are firm, some of the greens are pretty fast and it was playing a lot harder coming in. It was hard to get that ball close to the hole at 17. I hit a pretty good shot just to get it up there on the green and there were a lot of guys that were not getting on the greens.

14 was a tough driving hole today. You had to hit it firm there's just a pin yard, maybe a five yard slot you you had to get to get it in the fairway. Vijays's ran through to the right and mine stayed in the left. It was just a tough day to get anything blistering going.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Davis, can we go through your birdies and bogeys today?

DAVIS LOVE III: 1, I hit a drive down the right, down in the rough and tried to lay up. Hit it in the it left rough again and hit about an 90 yard sand wedge up there about 35 feet and made that for birdie.

2, 4 iron off the tee, and as I said, kind of thinned a sand wedge over the green, back up on the fringe and missed about a 15 footer.

3, 3 iron off the tee and 8 iron to about 18, 20 feet. Made that.

Then 7 iron to about four feet at 4.

Then all the way to 16, 6 iron, got it up in the wind, hit a great bunker shot just to get it on the green and then a 2 putt from about 40 feet.

Then a 1 iron and a 5 iron to about 30 feet. I hit a really good putt; didn't break. Made birdie.

Then a 3 wood off the tee again. I had a real hanging lie. I hit a 9 iron just left of the green about 20 feet from the hole and chipped it down there about four feet and missed it.

Q. Do you recall any other tournaments won by large margins?

DAVIS LOVE III: THE PLAYERS Championship this year, I had a five shot lead with two to go. Not all the way through, obviously, but after nine or ten, I was in pretty good shape.

I've had some great Sunday rounds and played maybe the last nine holes comfortable, but I don't think I've ever had a big lead starting Sunday and coasted the whole day, I don't think.

Q. What about in junior golf?

DAVIS LOVE III: Definitely not junior golf, or amateur golf.

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Congratulations again, Davis, and play well next week.

End of FastScripts....