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MERCEDES-BENZ CHAMPIONSHIP

January 4, 2007

Davis Love III

KAPALUA, HAWAII

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Davis Love III, thanks for joining us back at the Mercedes-Benz Championship for the first time since 2004. I'm sure it's a great way to start your season, and you played well today, with a 3-under. Maybe some opening comments.
DAVIS LOVE III: Just glad to survive the wind. Putted well. I hit a lot of good, solid shots, a couple bad drives. But other than that, I hit the ball real well. Glad to get in under par in pretty trying conditions.

Q. Do you feel sort of you were not in Hawaii but England or something with that weather?
DAVIS LOVE III: You know, we're used to it blowing here. They didn't obviously build this course for wind, but I don't think if we were here on vacation we would have played today. (Laughter). I would have stayed down there by the pool.
Really there is enough room to play when it blows this hard, and a lot of routes around the golf course that you can survive. If you can putt well and don't make any big mistakes, you can play well. If you make a lot of mistakes and you don't putt well, these kind of conditions will make you shoot a high score.
I hung in there real well, and like I said, I just hooked one drive and cut one drive with the wind. You can get out of play really quick. They were both on narrow holes, but you can get out of play really quick if you get it going with the wind, but all in all, a good day.

Q. Did you know that drive was gone on 16?
DAVIS LOVE III: I knew that there was a cart path crossing up there. I was hoping maybe I would get lucky.
Yeah, as soon as it cuts with the wind, or, you know, you see it start diving, it's magnified so much. That's a new bunker, I haven't played, but a couple of rounds with that new bunker up there, and it used to be we just hit right over the top of it and more left, which is better.

Q. Where was the other one that you hooked?
DAVIS LOVE III: 13. I hit it in the left bunker and then couldn't get it to the green from there.

Q. Good hole today?
DAVIS LOVE III: Yeah. There were some --

Q. To watch.
DAVIS LOVE III: There were some tough shots. I hit -- into 3, I hit a 5-iron into 3. That's usually like a driver, wedge, 8-iron at most at the hole. I hit a really good drive and a 5-iron. Vijay hit it in the bushes. Until you see somebody hit it in the bushes, you don't really think about it that much. But you keep seeing balls going in the bushes and guys looking for them, you know, you realise how hard it really is playing.

Q. What was the flipside of the 5-iron on 3?
DAVIS LOVE III: Like 230 front, 275 to the hole, hit a 4-iron. Driver, 4-iron on that hole and it's got to be 700 yards long probably down that hill.

Q. What year did you first play here in the other tournament that was here?
DAVIS LOVE III: '86. And we were playing the Bay back then.

Q. What's the worst you've seen the wind here?
DAVIS LOVE III: On this course? This is probably as bad as I've seen it. Maybe it's blown that hard one day or afternoon, but that's about as hard as I've seen it.

Q. I was going to ask you, as far as golf ball technology, 20 years ago, would there have been some horrendously high scores on a day like this?
DAVIS LOVE III: I don't think it really would have been that different. You know, we're probably carrying the ball 20 yards farther, but I remember with the old ball, hitting the same club and hitting 4-iron into 18 with a wooden driver.
So I don't think it would have been a whole lot different.

Q. What about as far as --
DAVIS LOVE III: I was playing a low trajectory ball. I think guys adapt. This ball is hard to curve when it's not windy. It might fly better when it's a hard wind, but everything's got its give and take. Like square grooves are great out of the rough; they are not really great out of the fairway at Pebble. We adapt to whatever we get. I don't think it would have been a whole lot different really.

Q. You were saying at the Target how your year sort of changed after the Ryder Cup where you tried too hard to get in, and you sort of eased off a bit, and then you win, and you seem to be playing well since then.
DAVIS LOVE III: Yeah, I've had a couple bad rounds, first rounds, at Target and at the The TOUR Championship. But other than that, I've been playing well and relaxed. I'm still working hard on my game and trying to get better.
I think a little bit of confidence goes a long way, and I think I got that at the Bridgestone right after the team was picked. I started to play a little bit better because I did relax and started playing my own game a little bit better.

Q. What other changes, because you haven't played here for a couple years now, do you see any other changes to the course?
DAVIS LOVE III: Well, obviously the first time on the new grass, on the greens.
Other than that, it's just in really good shape. I think they have done a great job working on the agronomy of the course. It seems it's prettier when you look at it, looking down 18, the greens look great and the fairways look great. So they have done a good job with that.
No, other than that bunker, really not any changes. It's a little soft because of the rain, but other than that, it's playing like I'm used to.

Q. You were saying things like, glad to survive, glad to finish under par, and it's the first tournament, first round of the year. Is that a good way to start the year, to have that middle-of-June mentality?
DAVIS LOVE III: I think you know it's going to be a long year and you have to be patient, but you don't want to start off the first round in conditions like this. I think that's why, frankly, you see some guys not playing here, because it can get pretty extreme.
You know, if I don't get in this tournament, I don't play the Sony, just because it keeps me out of the wind for a week. It's a tough way to start.
Last week it would have been awful nice to play the tournament, you know, because it was beautiful and calm. Some guys get pretty frustrated when the wind blows this hard. You have to be very, very patient with it.
You know, maybe that's good for some guys who have not been playing a whole lot. You're not really having to go out and hit precision ball-striking. It's more hit the ball solid, keep it into the wind and not make mistakes, and putt well. It's more of a mental battle than it is, you know, a ball-striking contest.

Q. Is this tournament more of shaking rust than hitting stride? Do you get wrapped up in bad round, good round?
DAVIS LOVE III: One player this week said, "I didn't come to Hawaii to practise." Some guys come over very early and spend a lot of time and get used to it, bring the family for Christmas. I guess Rory has been over for a long time.
Yeah, I think this is -- Gary and Nancy and Mark Rolfing and everybody have always been great hosts here. This is a nice place to come and a great place to play. You don't put a whole lot of expectations on the way you're going to hit the ball just because, like I said, it's extreme conditions. It's a hard place to practise, work on your swing. It's like going to the British Open. You know, in all that wind, you feel like you can lose your swing, not find it.
That's why after two weeks over here, I'm going to take two weeks off and try to get back to normal.
You know, I like coming over here, and I enjoy playing. It's a different style of golf. If you can understand kind of what Ben gives you and what you have to do, it's a fun course to play. I've always said, with a golf cart and shorts, this is one of the most fun golf courses to play. (Laughter). It's a neat golf course. It's different than anything you've ever seen, and it's big and it's wide and it's windy and it's interesting greens, and it's fun to play.
You know, it's just like, you know, Flint, Michigan. They say, "I don't like playing there because you have to shoot 28-under par." Some guys don't like playing this type of golf because it's the first week of the year. Other places like Pebble where the conditions are tough, you learn how to play and how to do well, like Mark O'Meara. He learned how to putt those greens really well, and he won a bunch of them.

Q. Are you going to play seven in a row in August and September, assuming you're alive right through to the The TOUR Championship?
DAVIS LOVE III: That's what we keep saying, is you would be happy if you got to play seven, if you got to play all four of the last four, if you played well enough to stay in.
I think it's like the Playoffs, you have to position yourself for the last four, and then you have to play well to stay in them.
I'm hoping that I do get that chance to play straight through.

Q. Shorts and a cart, you probably wouldn't have gone out today, though?
DAVIS LOVE III: Well, that's true. (Laughter). Might have stayed by the pool.
You know, it would have been a day, like when we came to Kapalua before the Mercedes, where we would have shown up here in the dark and we would have teed up right when the sun came up and we would have zipped around in our carts and had a bet with Andy Bean and all the guys, and we would have had a game and be done by ten o'clock and then goofed off the rest of the day. That was more vacation, obviously, than this one. We didn't have FedExCup points and Presidents Cup points riding on it and everything.

Q. After the win you had and to get here, you must be delighted to be in this tournament.
DAVIS LOVE III: Well, I wouldn't miss it. I played hard to win to get to come here, to -- like I said, to get to see Gary and Nancy and Mark and all of the people here. This place has a lot of great memories for me. I love coming here.
Again, it's like Pebble. I'm thrilled to go to Pebble. Some guys don't like it. Some guys don't like the format. But this has always been a great place for me to play and I've always done well, on this island and the other island.

Q. How many points do you get if you win this week?
DAVIS LOVE III: I get all of them. (Laughter). My share of 25,000 points. I don't even know.

Q. That was a quiz. Do you know how much money you get?
DAVIS LOVE III: No, actually I don't. $1 million?

Q. 1.1 million and the car.
DAVIS LOVE III: Ten percent would be -- 4,500. Is it 18 percent of the points like it was 18 percent of the money? Right.

Q. As a policy board member for such a long time, express what you consider as a necessity to change into this FedExCup, why did the TOUR have to do it?
DAVIS LOVE III: Well, because what we saw at the end of last year, we didn't have guys playing in the The TOUR Championship. We had kind of a drop-off in interest towards the end of the year. So we needed a more impactful finish, and the players were asking, why can't we finish, you know, in August, September, rather than going all the way through to the first week of November. Then we needed to sell something to TV that wasn't the same old thing. You know, if Polo didn't change something every spring and fall, they just brought the same clothes every time, you would get tired of it.
I think we needed something new and fresh. Obviously we're not trying to be NASCAR, but NASCAR sells better than everybody else except with NFL. And, you know, you look at every other sport. Baseball changed, football's changed their Playoffs, hockey made huge changes so they would have a package to sell. I think that's what we had to do was come up with something that people wanted to watch and something exciting and something that carried the audience all year.
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Davis Love III, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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