How Love uses golf to heal scars from a life touched by tragedy
US captain throws himself into work to help deal with loss of father and brother-in-law, finds Oliver Brown
S croll down the final leaderboard of the 1969 Open at Royal Lytham and St Annes, and a strangely familiar name jumps out. For there, tucked alongside Jack Nicklaus in a tie for sixth, is a certain Davis Love Jnr. An obdurate competitor, who once qualified for a US Open despite a grip impaired by six stitches in his right index finger, Love was recognised to be among the outstanding tutors of his generation. Wedded to the wisdom of Harvey Penick, the Texan author of the Little Red Book of folksy advice and anecdotes, he would later have his name inscribed at the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame.
There was no more receptive pupil of his philosophy than his eldest son, Davis III. “I never saw a father-son relationship that was as good as theirs,” Bob Toski, a fellow instructor who played in four majors, told Golf Digest in 2008. One reason, perhaps unusually for the parents of precocious talents, is that the elder Love was not afraid to lavish his boy with plaudits, once likening his powers of escapology on the course to those of Seve Ballesteros.
“Analysed rationally, my father’s praise was absurd,” Love III wrote in his autobiography, Every Shot I
Take. “There was no sensible way to discuss Seve and I in the same sentence. But my father did, and in so doing, he made me the golfer and the man I am today.”
One should hesitate to judge the sentimentality of such a remark. On Nov 13, 1988, Love Jnr was killed in a plane crash, with three other passengers, as thick fog enveloped their approach to Jackonsville airport. His son had just arrived in Hawaii, with his wife, Robin, when he called home, only for his mother to inform him in acute distress that the plane had fallen off the radar. Hours later, local television stations confirmed that there were no survivors.
The numbness of that moment is one that Love, now 52 and a
naturally emotional man, almost never describes. His way of coping has always been to lose himself in his work. After his father died, he would draw comfort from reading the contents of the huge folders of notes that he had left behind. “Whenever my dad had an idea, he would write it down,” he said. “He was interested in many things, from the lyrics of country music to the afterlife of the soul. He believed in the written word.”
So, too, does Love III, the often misunderstood character who leads the US Ryder Cup team this week for a second time, after the 2012 defeat at Medinah. He is one of the most voracious readers on tour, packing his suitcases with books as diverse as those of Elmore Leonard and Hunter S Thompson.
What few realise about Love, whose one major triumph came at the 1997 USPGA at Winged Foot, is that his is a life circumscribed by tragedy. As if the desolation of his father’s passing was not enough, he suffered fresh trauma in 2003, when his brother-in-law, Jeffrey Knight, committed suicide with a shot to the head. It later emerged that Knight, who had worked as an operations manager for the Love household, paying bills and making travel plans, was being investigated for stealing money from Love’s bank account.
“I’ve always moved forward, to keep me focused and sane
My father’s praise was absurd but it made me the man I am today
and to help everybody else get over it,” Love reflected. “We have been through it twice, strange tragedies, and if I had sat back and worried about what we could have done differently or who I was mad at, I couldn’t function.”
The scars, understandably, run deep. While Love has long since been accustomed to the multimillionaire lifestyle, he will often not indulge the habits of his peers in taking private planes for short journeys. After all, this was also the way that Payne Stewart, a close contemporary of Love’s, met his end.
Mercifully, the memories endure just as vividly. In one of Love’s old Ryder Cup bags, there are still two of his father’s favourite clubs, including a sand wedge worn out from overuse. “My late father is still my hero,” he said. “He always was, he always will be.”
It would appear the dynasty is continuing to thrive. Love’s son, Davis IV – nicknamed Dru, as in ‘quadruple’ – is an accomplished golfer in his own right, having represented the University of Alabama in the sport. Love made a point of introducing him to the full exhilarating chaos of the Ryder Cup experience at Medinah in 2012, and he intends to do the same here at Hazeltine.
The ties that bind the Love clan have also been accentuated by the death last weekend of Arnold Palmer. Love Jr had known Palmer well, and poignancy was not lost on his son as the captain dwelt upon the inspiration that the late Palmer would give to his players in Minnesota this week.
“I was the son of a professional like he was, and my dad always held Arnold in high regard,” he said. “I was a little kid, and Arnold would rub my head, say hello and ask, ‘How are you doing, son?’ I’ve seen him do that a million times with kids. He just meant an awful lot to our family. He was my inspiration as a golfer, a role model in how to act as a professional. I tried to sign autographs as well and as patiently as him, even though I never lived up to it.”
Such is Love’s relatively youthful image, it can be a stretch to accept that he is now a grandfather. But the skills he gleaned from his father have yet to leave him. In this, his 30th year on tour, he achieved the distinction of a holein-one at Augusta’s notorious 16th during the final round of the Masters. “I guess I can back myself up a little bit,” said Love, who became the third-oldest champion in PGA Tour history last year with his victory at the Wyndham Championship in North Carolina.
The influence of Love’s father will be considerable over the coming days, as he plots a way to purge the agonies of Medinah. One of Love Jr’s favourite aphorisms, taken from celebrated former course architect Seymour Dunn, was perseverance was defined by a “state of grace, until it is succeeded by a state of glory”. The grace is guaranteed, such is Love’s scrupulous politeness with everybody he meets. What he covets most of all, if only for the sake of the father he still mourns, is the glory.
Arnold meant an awful lot to our family. He was my inspiration