Articles from Pro Golf Now:
Tiger Says Never Give Up On Your Dreams
Paul Azinger on Best Short Games Ever, Best Golf Holes
Johnny Miller Talks Choking, Open Mics, Regrets
Arnie Invented The Modern Grand Slam
Rory Explains Why Tiger Won 18 WGC Events
New Golf Entrepreneurs: Never Lose A Club Again
Articles here:
This Guy Could Die from A Golf Course High Five
Could Your Club Be Royal? Is EastLake Similar to Augusta?
“I felt like I was in the way for the other guys. I really struggled on the holes with left-to-right wind, especially. I was getting worse and worse. I had a few good holes, actually, until I three-putted for double at the ninth. I just can’t hit it hard, and it hurts when I try.”
Why that matters is that it is looking increasingly doubtful that Love will break a somewhat obscure PGA Tour record— most starts. Former PGA champ Mark Brooks holds the mark with 803 tournament appearances. Jay Haas is second at 799. Love inched slightly closer with this aborted start, his only PGA Tour event in 2024. He has now played in 791 tournaments.
The record for most combined starts on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions is held by the Miller Barber, who teed it up under the Tour banner 1,297 times—694 times on the PGA Tour, 603 on the senior circuit.
“I have no design on that record,” Love said. “I just want to get Brooksie. I figured the other day that if I can just play RSM until I’m 75, I can do it, so I’ve got to keep them (RSM, the sponsor) around.”
Love, who has also had both hips surgically replaced, figured he was going to blow past Brooks in the record book two years ago at the RSM Classic. But injuries, again, limited his play. It’s been an ongoing, almost Tiger-Woods-like saga. “In the last ten years, I figure I’ve been out five years,” Love joked.
Love played only three times on the PGA Tour in 2023 and only three times in PGA Tour Champions tournaments this year, withdrawing from the ColoGuard Classic after two rounds. Last month, he teed it up at Jim Furyk’s tournament and tied for 63rd.
He was hoping to play the World Wide Technology Championship, a PGA Tour fall event in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, but his hand wasn’t physically ready for that, either.
“It’s been a long year and a lot of effort from a lot of doctors and therapists and coaches to try to get me back to where I could play,” Love said. “My coach got me hitting it pretty well a few times, then my wrist got swollen up and I’m back to injections after a few days.
“When I had my hips replaced, I came right back to playing the tour. Today, I just went home and walked the dog for a three-mile-plus walk after walking nine holes. I’m fine except for my thumbkins. I just have no strength in my hands and it’s hard to play golf without that.”
The tipoff that he should probably get off the course, other than his rapidly ballooning scores in the difficult conditions, was that it was too painful to fix a ball mark on the green. “I couldn’t figure out which hand to do it with,” Love joked.
He knew he needed surgery in both thumbs so he had the right one done first. Once he nurses it back to health, he’ll have to get the left one fixed, too. “I knew it would take me a year and a half to get back to normal,” he said, “and it’s been longer that that. It’s a bummer.”
Meanwhile, the chase for the Most Starts record remains at a virtual standstill. Love isn’t surrendering the chase to his pal, Brooks. When a reporter suggested that Brooks was starting to look uncatchable, Love laughed and disagreed.
“He’s still in trouble,” Love said. “Somehow, some way. Jay (Haas) and Mark and I have talked a lot. Jay said, ‘Good luck.’ Brooks said he’d caddie for me when I break his record, so I’ve got that going for me”
Another reason it remains a distant possibility is that Love scored his 21st PGA Tour victory in 2015. Twenty-one wins is the magic number that guarantees a player a lifetime exemption. Love can take a year off, come back and still have exempt status to play in most of the non-elevated events.
The Brooks chase is really more locker-room one-upmanship and friendly banter than a serious record like Jack Nicklaus and his 18 major championships. And Love is grateful that his ailments aren’t as serious as other top players whose careers were cut short or limited by more serious injuries.
“I’m way better off than Tiger or Scott (Verplank) or Fred Couples,” Love said.
Mentioning his close friend Couples made Love smirk.
“But Fred’s really old,” he quipped.
Careful, Davis. Couples has a bad back, sure, but you do not want a piece of him in a thumb-wrestling showdown. He would be the favorite… hands down.
by Gary Van Sickle
ST. SIMONDS ISLAND, Ga.—You have to hand it to Davis Love.
Literally.
Love’s hands are so arthritic they practically belong on an endangered species list.
He’s got bone-on-bone arthritis in both thumbs. He can’t beat his young granddaughters in thumb-wrestling becaue of it. While rehabbing after an April surgery on his right thumb, he tweaked his right wrist.
“I used up all my good shots in the pro-am Wednesday and it was downhill from there,” said Love, 60.
It’s thumbs down for Love at RSM Classic
Kathy Bissell has more than 35 years experience as a golf writer and television producer.
Gary Van Sickle's The Secret Masters
- Hughes Norton, one of golf's first Superagents, has a new book: Rainmaker. Norton signed Tiger Woods and Greg Norman, Curtis Strange, Ben Crenshaw, Bill Rodgers, Tom Watson, Nancy Lopez and many others when in charge of golf at IMG. Two years after delivering at least $60 million in guaranteed money to Tiger Woods, Norton was fired by Woods. Then he was fired by McCormack but given a severance package of $9 million. Now he's revealing the whole story.
Gary Van Sickle has covered golf since 1980, following the tours to 125 men's major championships, 14 Ryder Cups and one sweet roundtrip flight on the late Concorde. He is likely the only active golf writer who covered Tiger Woods during his first pro victory, in Las Vegas in 1997, and his 81st, in Augusta in April.
- Hughes Norton, Tiger Woods' first agent, in Interview 2, where he talks about Tiger's future and predicts how many times Woods will win on PGA Tour Champions. Norton, in addition to being Woods' first agent, was also the agent for Greg Norman. Norton shares the backstory of Norman's "creation" of his World Tourl concept and where they originated. The details are surprising!
- NEW FROM THE GOLF SHOW:
- The National Invitation
- GOLF QUIZ SHOW
- Where Gary Van Sickle tries to stump guests on golf trivia
- Can YOU answer all the questions?
- Tom Alter vs Scott Michaux
The Golf Show 2.0 with Kathy Bissell & Gary Van Sickle