Friday, August 18
By Bob Harig
Special to ESPN Golf Online
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- To say you are going to remain focused on your own game is one thing. In the age of Tiger, it is quite another.
|  | | Two rounds in the 60s have Davis Love III just four shots off the lead. |
Davis Love III is trying his best to worry about himself these days. Concentrate on his own game. Keep his eyes off the scoreboard. Hit the shots and make the putts that made him a multiple PGA Tour winner and major champion.
But it has been more than two years since Love won a tournament, and for someone of his talent and ability, it would be understandable to get antsy.
And after the way Love finished the second round Friday at the PGA Championship, a call to his sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, is likely in order.
Love had pulled within two shots of leader Tiger Woods at Valhalla Golf Club. A birdie at the 16th hole had him two birdies away from tying for the tournament lead. What happens? Love bogeys the last two holes to fall four shots back.
"I'm not happy with the way I scored," Love said. "I hit the ball real good for two days, so hopefully tomorrow I can get more out of it."
Perhaps Love is better off for not having played his way into the final group with Woods. His success against the world's best player has not led to much positive reinforcement.
And like much of the world, he is at a loss for a way to beat Woods.
Love lost a final-round duel to Woods earlier this year at Bay Hill, lost a head-to-head duel to Woods 5 and 4 at the Match Play Championship in February, another match to Woods in last year's PGA Grand Slam and finished second to Woods at last fall's Tour Championship.
He also suffered a sudden-death defeat at the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, Woods' first tour victory. Since that time, Woods has won 20 more times on the PGA Tour, including all four major championships.
Love is still in search of victory No. 14, a quest that has endured since his 1998 victory at the 1998 MCI Classic.
That's not to say that Love is playing poorly this year. He has seven top-10 finishes, six top-5s and has won nearly $2 million.
"I have been close all year," Love said. "And I worked real hard on my swing over the winter and start of the season, and my swing has gotten better and better. And I think I have gotten a little too wrapped up in expectations, and now I am just trying to relax and play.
"And obviously I would like to win some golf tournaments, but the only way I am going to do that is ... to get out and play and quit thinking about the results."
Love was among several players earlier this year who was glowing in his praise of Woods. Such kind words appeared to take the edge off a player considered among the best in the game.
But Love has not been alone there. When Woods gets in contention or out in front, players admit, he is difficult to beat.
Love believes, more than anything, he has been beating himself.
"I try not to pay any attention to what other players are doing," he said. "I just play my own game and get lost in my own little world out there a little bit. ... It is hard not to watch leaderboards. Bob Rotella said, 'If you have to look at them, look at them and forget about it, and make it remind you to get back into your game.'
"That is what I have to do. I can't not look. But you know, you pretty much see some good scores every day at a major. It is hard to keep doing it day after day after day. So I don't pay a whole lot of attention to it until Sunday."
By then, Love could be in the thick of another major championship. Woods has yet to run away with this one.
"You have to keep playing smart," Love said. "The guys that take risks are the guys shooting bad scores. You have to play patient and take the birdies when you can and keep it in the fairways and on the greens."
Bob Harig, who covers golf for the St. Petersburg Times, writes a column every Tuesday for ESPN Golf Online. |  |
