Love Holds On to Win Despite Kite’s 64 : Golf: He earns Tournament of Champions title with a 69 after his former mentor ties the course record.

Bad weather brings out the best in Tom Kite, and he made an impressive run up the leader board during the final round of the Infiniti Tournament of Champions at the La Costa Resort on Sunday.

But although Kite shot a course record-tying 64 on a damp day, he couldn’t catch Davis Love III.

Love shot a steady three-under-par 69 for a 72-hole score of 272 to win the tournament by one stroke over Kite.

Love, playing three groups behind Kite, was aware of the challenge that the 1992 U.S. Open champion was making.

The key hole for Love was the par-five ninth, where his three-wood second shot of 247 yards landed 15 feet from the cup. He made his putt for an eagle and held off Kite the rest of the way.

Love, 28, earned $144,000, while Kite, 43, got $86,400.

The prediction of a heavy storm didn’t materialize here. Nonetheless, there was some light rain in the morning. There were soggy fairways and greens that had to be squeegeed because of standing water.

There was some doubt Saturday that the last round would be played, given the weather forecast. Love, who had a one-shot lead over Paul Azinger after 54 holes, spent an anxious night, looking out the window of his hotel room to check the weather.

If the round was washed out, Love would have been declared the winner.

Love said he got a phone call from Bob Rotella, a sports psychologist, from Virginia early Sunday morning.

“He told me to plan on playing . . . ‘Get it in your head that you’re going to play the whole round today and that it isn’t over.

“ ‘In that way, if you don’t play, it will be a surprise rather than the other way around.’ That got me back to thinking about playing and winning.

“I still got off to a slow start when it was raining. But once we got past five and six (holes), I was pretty settled in that we were going to finish and I had to keep grinding it out.

“The main thing is that I just hung in there all day and I didn’t make too many mistakes. I kept from making bogeys.”

Love made only one bogey, on Friday, through the entire tournament.

Love, who was paired with Azinger, said he was aware of Kite’s charge.

“I hit a bad drive on the sixth hole and I saw that Kite was moving up the board. I said to myself, ‘You’ve got to quit thinking about what you and Paul are doing and start playing. Kite is going to blow right by me if I keep making pars.’ ”

Love had only one birdie to go with his eagle.

Love and Kite were the winning partners in the November Shark Shootout at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

Moreover, Love said that Kite was a mentor for him early in his career.

“It was nice to have the ear of a guy that good,” Love said.

Kite shot a 64 while winning the Tournament of Champions in 1985. He also won the event in 1991. Six other players have also had 64s at La Costa.

Kite, who started the last round six strokes behind Love, said that he was somewhat by surprised the way he played.

“There was no indication the first three days that things would fall into place like they did today,” he said.

Kite said he had been struggling with his putter all week. Then, he watched himself on videotape and made some adjustments.

“I put more weight on my left side and put my hands forward and started to roll the ball like crazy,” Kite said. “Even if the greens are bumpy, if you’re hitting the ball solidly you can putt on a gravel road. All of a sudden, everything started to go in.”

Kite had eight birdies and during a stretch of six holes, seven through 12, he made five birdie putts.

Five of his birdie putts were in the 15- to 18-foot range. And he put added pressure on Love with birdies at 17 and 18.

The weather, cold and damp, didn’t bother Kite. Far from it.

“Bad conditions help me,” he said. “I’ve had some of my best tournaments in terrible conditions.

“A lot of guys get frustrated with the conditions and they take the attitude that a lesser score will be adequate. Where I think it’s a great opportunity to make up a lot of ground on people.”