THE INTERNATIONAL

August 6, 2003

Davis Love III

JOAN vT ALEXANDER: You got off with to a hot start this year with three wins, including THE PLAYERS Championship, and then you had a disappointing loss with a family member in June, and then you bounced back again at the British Open. How do you bounce your lifestyle like that? Along with that, you have all of those other things, your course design, how do you do that?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, I did. I started off great and I am playing well. Obviously, well-documented loss of a family member this summer that obviously slowed our whole family down a little bit. But I played good at Kemper when I came back and just had a bad U.S. Open. But then I did, I came back and played good at the British and I'm hitting the ball good and feeling good.

You know, my family is all doing very, very well. It's unfortunate, the tragedy in our family and unfortunately it's also spurred some rumors that -- I don't know if they started on TOUR or if they started at home. But there's another top player that is having the same problem. Just he's playing very, very well, and for some reason, when we play well, people start things that aren't true, I guess jealousy, or in my situation, there's a lot going on this summer. So I think a lot of things spun out of that.

The result is it's a distraction off the golf course, so I can't wait to get to a nice place like Castle Pines and enjoy playing golf and seeing friends, like starting with Jack Vicars, but right through Tom Worrell (ph) in the locker room and the lady on the fourth hole that's welcoming us to the fourth hole, like the Fourth Hole Chamber of Commerce. The people are so nice here, so friendly, so it's nice. It's a nice break to get away from things going on at home. I get out and play and I think I'm playing good, because I have to focus when I get on a golf course and block everything else out.

But my family is doing very, very well. And contrary to popular rumor, I'm not getting divorced and we are not unhappy and we're doing very, very well at home. So my kids are ready for school to start and I'm ready for the second half of the year, so I'm real excited about it.

Made the Presidents Cup team already, but they are going to be picked in the next couple of weeks, so I've got that to look forward to, and one more major and three or four more big tournaments, so I'm excited.

Q. Talk a little bit about the Presidents Cup, what it means tournament-wise, what it means to be playing with Jack and overseas?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, we owe Jack one, we know that. We went down there last -- well, last time we were out of the country, only time we were out of the country and didn't win. So, you know, we put a great effort for coming back for Ken Venturi but we didn't put a great effort forward for Jack.

He's a legend, but he's also a friend of ours. And whether it's Curtis or Tom Kite or any of the guys that we didn't win for, you want to win for them as much as you want to do for yourself.

I think we'll be a little bit more motivated and it's not the build-up for us or the pressure of the Ryder Cup. And I think going out of the country, it got away from us a little bit; that we were not quite as ready. Obviously, it was an off-season, basically, for us, so this year I think I'm going to be ready. THE TOUR Championship is a week later. The guys on the team are all playing very well. We have guys moving up into the team rather than guys hanging onto make the team. We are all looking really good. We're excited about it.

Q. How do you rate your Player of the Year chances, and is that a big motivating factor going into the final months of the year?

DAVIS LOVE III: Well, that was one of my goals at the start of the year, so that's how I keep playing every week, keep trying to improve and working on my game. So I think, realistically, if I don't win the PGA, I can't win the Player of the Year.

I didn't have a good Masters or U.S. Open. So I think I've got to win the PGA, which is part of my plan anyway. So just try to block all that out and go play. Obviously, there's a lot of guys playing very, very well. You know, Kenny Perry wins the PGA, he's up there for Player of the Year. Obviously Mike Weir and Jim Furyk. But I think you have to have a major to separate yourself. I've got the fifth major, so probably one of the big four would probably cement it for me. That would be the clearest case maybe.

But I need to win some more and PGA is one of them.

Q. Probably more European Ryder Cuppers at this tournament than they have ever had, or potential Ryder Cuppers. Last year you talked about, it's really good to have that familiarity when you play against those guys. Why so? Why is it beneficial looking ahead?

DAVIS LOVE III: It's nice to see the guys where you pop up in the Ryder Cup and you play a guy and you've never played with him before. So it's nice to have seen a guy, played with a guy. I've gotten to be friends with quite a few of them, Darren and Lee Westwood, Sergio is out here all the time basically. We've gotten to know them so when you play with them, you're a little bit more comfortable. You're not like, who is this guy I'm playing, how does he play. I know when I'm going to play when I get there. It makes it a little bit easier, more familiar.

Q. This other player who has also had some off-golf problems, have you talked with him a little bit or pulled him aside and talked him through it?

DAVIS LOVE III: No. Because when I got here, I just heard all of these rumors about my wife and family and heard some rumors about his -- and it's not John Daly. I don't know whose -- I haven't seen him to talk to him, but I don't know why the -- it seems like every time I have really, really -- I've played pretty good all the time, but when I really, really play good, somebody takes a shot at my wife, and I don't know why that is. And it sounds like it's happening to another player, and I don't know if it's something out on TOUR or if it's something in our little hometown or what it is. But when I do, I'll talk to him because maybe there's some connection.

Q. What would you say?

DAVIS LOVE III: I don't care what people say. My wife and her friends and this other player's wife and her friends are the ones that get hurt by it. So we just try to see if we can put a stop to it for the ladies' sake.

Q. Obviously you are comfortable here. Is this a good place for you to come to say, okay, now it's time to start the rest of the year?

DAVIS LOVE III: Yeah, it is. When I played the U.S. and the British, it was more like going through the training to get ready for a course that I had never seen before and go over to the British and the training to get ready for that kind of golf.

But now it's like, all right, I'm back on the PGA TOUR where I know what's going on, and I know what I'm -- I'm going to Akron, I'm going to the TOUR Championship, I'm going to the Presidents Cup, places that places like Champions, Firestone, Oak Hill, that we've been before. So I feel like this is the second half of my year or a re-start. THE PLAYERS Championship seems like it was years ago. I have to go back and watch the tape and see what happened, but remember those feelings. That was almost like it was another year, and I'm hitting it as good as I've ever hit it, and proved it at the Open Championship. If I would have just played the first few holes well, like Ben Curtis did, I could have run away with it.

This is like a new start and this is a great place to start. This is problem this probably isn't the best golf course to walk before the PGA, but it is a good place get ready for the PGA because it's a good course, I like the place and I love the format. It's a good place to warm up. I'm not going to be on the range every day for two or three hours. I'm just going to play, enjoy Castle Pines and play my way in, rather than at the U.S. Open, I think I beat too many balls at Kemper and tried to squeeze something out of myself and overdid it.

Q. Mr. Vicars was in here earlier this morning and talked about restricting the golf ball. Would you be in favor of that because of the fact, the belief, that a lot of the classic courses are losing out now and are going to be gone?

DAVIS LOVE III: If he'll move the tees up that he's built up -- when he does that. I can't get to 8 anymore. I can't get to, what is it, 14, anymore. So if he moves the tees up, yeah, I'll go for it.

But, no, the hard -- the great thing about golf is, is that on Monday, somebody will walk in that golf shop, buy the golf ball that won this golf tournament and they can go play with it and see they can what they can do with it. You know, restricting a ball for the PGA TOUR, you start playing two different games. If you restrict the ball overall, you're taking the fun out of the game for the average guy.

I played with a guy today who just got a new driver, and I don't know if the driver makes that much difference, but he bought a new driver and he's hitting it good. He's a 13-handicap, and he's not hitting it 400 yards; he's hitting it 270, 260 and he's having fun. I don't see why he wouldn't back it up and everybody goes, gosh, now the game just got harder.

The game is too hard for the average guy, anyway. So I don't think there's any need for that. There's a lot of players that complain that the ball is going too far, but everybody has the same equipment. When Jack played, everybody had the same equipment and Jack beat the heck out of everybody. I think the USGA, the R&A, the PGA TOUR and the manufacturers are finally on the same sheet of paper and they are going to keep it where it is. You know, that's hard enough to do, but going backwards, I think it would be -- I think would be a mistake.

The golf business is not doing well right now. We don't really need to make the game harder. It takes too long and it's too hard, we need to make -- leave golf courses alone and maybe just play longer for us and nobody else.

I would be against it. I would be surprised if anybody went for it.

Q. Then talked more about -- inaudible?

DAVIS LOVE III: That would be like saying, all right, in the NBA we are going to be playing 12-foot baskets because everybody dunks it all the time. Well, that's because there used to be one guy on the team that could dunk it and now everybody can dunk it. Is that because of technology? No. It's because the athletes are getting better and better.

The reason why so many guys hit it so far out here is the athletes are better and better. Everybody hits it a long way. Everybody has got the same equipment and everybody hits it a long way. It's not like there's guys way out here and guys way down here. The athletes are getting, go, out and watch Ricky Barnes play golf. He can walk on any college football team in the country probably. There weren't any guys that looked like that when I was playing amateur golf. So I think that's -- nobody liked like Tiger Woods or David Duval or Ricky Barnes. They are better athletes, there is better instruction, a whole lot of things. Yeah, the equipment is a little bit better, but the players are a whole lot better.

The problem we see as professionals and the TOUR sees is that this perception, well, the equipment is why they are so good. Back it up 20 percent and we are still going to be really good, you know. We are still going to shoot lower scores than everybody else and the scratch handicap to the TOUR player is still going to be the same huge gap, and I don't think it really -- Ricky Barnes one week is playing in the U.S. Amateur, and the next week he's playing in a PGA TOUR event; he has to switch equipment. That just doesn't work. So I don't think it will ever fly.

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