Love Is a State of Mind

He has a million-dollar swing, a $1-million motor home, a million-dollar smile and a tournament he’d pay a million dollars to win. That’s Davis Love III and the Masters, something he has chased since 1988, come close to winning twice and having his heart broken by it more than once.

Will it be different this year?

As usual, Tiger Woods is the favorite in the Masters, and may always be at Augusta National Golf Club as long as there are pine trees and blooming azaleas and Rae’s Creek flows the right way.

But this time, Love’s an old star on the horizon, speaking confidently, playing the best golf of his career.

“I feel like I can do it,” Love said. “It’s just a hard, hard tournament to win.”

Maybe it will be easier than he thinks. If so, Love will again praise his sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, who has been working on Love’s mental game for nearly two decades.

If Love is confident, then so is Rotella.

“I think he’s really got his head together,” Rotella said.

As for Love’s game, it’s looking just as together. Love won the Players Championship, with Woods in the field, when he blistered Sawgrass with a final-round 64. In his tournament before that, Love tied for second at the Honda. Five weeks before that, Love won at Pebble Beach.

So far, Love is a combined 82 under par, he has been in the 60s in 17 of his 25 rounds, he has won $2.78 million in seven weeks of work and he has emerged as the top challenger to end Woods’ run to what would be a record three consecutive Masters titles.

Somewhere in the mud that is in very large supply this week at Augusta National, someone is writing “Love is the Intimidator.”

Or maybe not, Love said.

“I don’t think they will be intimidated, but I think they will recognize the fact that I’m a guy to beat if I can get on the board on the weekend.”

Rotella’s mission isn’t necessarily for Love to win the Masters, only to maximize his playing ability and his brain power.

“As long as you can keep yourself getting in position to win, we don’t have a problem,” Rotella said.

At the Masters, Love’s chances have been few but memorable. Last year, he tied for 14th after leading the first round with a 67. He has been second twice.

He closed with a 66 in 1995 and lost by one shot to Ben Crenshaw. Love said he didn’t do anything wrong that week, shot 13 under and thought it was good enough to win.

In 1999, he shared the first-round lead but wound up two shots behind winner Jose Maria Olazabal. Love double- bogeyed the 15th when he shot a 70 on Saturday and in four days he played the par-five holes in a combined three under. By comparison, Woods played the par-five holes last year in seven under.

At this stage in his career, Love is flattered to be listed among the favorites.

“It’s nice to be back on the list,” he said. “It’s nice to have everyone else consider me a favorite, but also that I consider myself one of the favorites.

“I think that’s even more important. And to be excited about it and not trying to find my game, figure out something about my game.”

You would have to figure that at some point, Love and the Masters would work out their relationship.

Love, who turns 39 on Sunday, started playing golf as soon as he could walk. His father was Davis Love Jr., one of the top teaching pros. Young Davis was born the day after his dad tied for 31st in the 1964 Masters.

In his 18th year as a pro, Love has 16 tournament titles, but only one of them is a major.

Since he won the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot, Love has played 20 major championships. Outside of his runner-up to Olazabal here in 1999, he hasn’t finished better than seventh in the other 19. He has six top-10 finishes in that span of majors.

Love said he never thought it would be so hard to win another major.

“It really hasn’t paid off for me yet,” he said.

“I thought, yeah, after the PGA, you look at a lot of guys that once they’ve won one, they get on a roll, win a bunch of them. But I’ve learned that there’s very few of those guys that win a whole bunch of them. I’m more relaxed here, yes, since 1997, but I need it to pay off in a win.”

He is trying to cash in this week. Love began working in that direction during the off-season when he decided he needed to work on his focus. He decided to rededicate himself to golf.

The first week out, he was 21 under par and tied for 12th at the Bob Hope. The next week, Love was 14 under the last three rounds at Pebble Beach and he won. Afterward, Love credited the positive thinking and coaching he received from Rotella.

After 22 years as director of sports psychology at the University of Virginia, Rotella made a name for himself as the brain coach for many of golf’s stars, including Nick Price, Tom Kite, Brad Faxon and Love, plus more recently Padraig Harrington, Scott Verplank and Darren Clarke.

At Rotella’s suggestion, Love formulated specific attitude goals he wanted to achieve, to improve his state of mind. The idea, Rotella said, was for Love to figure out how good Love could be.

“It was an attitude like this,” Rotella said. “If you play as well as you can, everything else is irrelevant. Define yourself from within. As long as you can walk off the course and feel you’re a winner, then you’re a winner.”

Rotella said it’s all right to miss if your mind is in the right place. There is also a miss because of a little bit of fear and Rotella encourages his clients to be honest with themselves.

At Sawgrass, Love followed Rotella’s orders, however boring Love said they might sound to others -- stay in the moment, take one shot at a time, don’t worry about anyone or anything else.

“It sounds simple, but it’s hard to do,” said Rotella, who ultimately convinced Love of the possible effects of such a simple plan.

“That’s why they give you a big check and a big trophy,” Rotella told Love.

He’s a better putter than ever, and he’s still regarded as one of the heavy hitters on tour, so Love would seem to be poised for something big this week on the rain-soaked fairways and greens of Augusta National.

Since 1992, he has been in the top 10 in driving distance in every Masters, except for 1994 and 2001, when he missed the cut. Also, Love has been more confident and effective with his putting since he ranked 29th in 1998 -- from fifth in 1999 to 29th in 2000 to 16th in 2002.

There may be something special in store for him this week, at least that’s the way Love feels. He has a certain bounce in his step, an air of confidence about him that should help him even out the bad hops and strange places he might find his ball every now and then over the course of four rounds.

“This place can be very tricky,” he said.

Maybe this time, Love has something up his sleeve.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Davis Love III Wins

* 1987: MCI Heritage Golf Classic.

* 1990: The International.

* 1991: MCI Heritage Golf Classic.

* 1992: The Players, MCI Heritage Golf Classic, KMart Greater Greensboro Open.

* 1993: Infiniti Tournament of Champions, Las Vegas Invitational.

* 1995: Freeport-McMoRan Classic.

* 1996: Buick Invitational.

* 1997: PGA Championship, Buick Challenge.

* 1998: MCI Classic.

* 2001: AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

* 2003: AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, the Players.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Love in Masters

How Davis Love III has fared in the Masters:

*--* Year Scores Result Money 1988 73-79 - 152 Miss cut $1,500 1991 72-71-74-72 - 289 Tie 42 $4,875 1992 68-72-72-72 - 284 Tie 25 $11,467 1993 73-72-76-77 - 298 Tie 54 $3,900’ 1994 76-78 - 154 Miss cut $1,500 1995 69-69-71-66 - 275 2 $237,600 1996 72-71-74-68 - 285 Tie 7 $77,933 1997 72-71-72-71 - 286 Tie 7 $78,570 1998 74-75-67-78 - 294 Tie 33 $18,112 1999 69-72-70-71 - 282 2 $432,000 2000 75-72-68-71 - 286 Tie 7 $143,367 2001 71-75 - 146 Miss cut $5,000 2002 67-75-74-71 - 287 Tie 14 $98,000

*--*

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Love Earnings by Year

Earnings for Davis Love III on PGA Tour year by year:

*--* Year Money Rank 1986 $113,245 77th 1987 $297,378 33rd 1988 $156,068 75th 1989 $278,760 44th 1990 $537,172 20th 1991 $686,361 8th 1992 $1,191,630 2nd 1993 $777,059 12th 1994 $474,219 33rd 1995 $1,111,999 6th 1996 $1,211,139 7th 1997 $1,635,953 3rd 1998 $1,541,152 11th 1999 $2,475,328 3rd 2000 $2,337,765 9th 2001 $3,169,463 5th 2002 $2,056,160 21st 2003 $2,782,645 2nd Career $22,833,495 2nd

*--*