Love Still Hopes to Find a Way

Four days after the Masters ends, Davis Love III turns 42 and time will tell whether there’s a reason to have a party. It has been a strange two-year dry spell for Love, an 18-time winner on the PGA Tour.

He won four times in 2003, including the AT&T; Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Players Championship, when he was third on the money list with a personal-best $6 million. But then injuries started building up and Love’s results showed it. He missed six cuts in 2004, his most in 10 years, and missed eight more last year when he was 13th on the money list -- his second-lowest finish since 1989.

After missing two cuts in his first three tournaments this year, Love remains upbeat. He said he’s not nearly done yet, but he is thinking about how much time he has left to play the pro tour.

“That’s why I’m really working hard on getting in shape,” he said.

“I still hit it as far as I’ve ever hit it. I still know that I can play and I still know that the experience, when you get close to the lead, it certainly pays off.”

Love said he has been working again with sports psychologist Bob Rotella.

“Physically I’m ready to go. It’s just I’ve got to do the mental stuff,” Love said.

“The secret is not exactly surprising information, but it involves staying in the moment, being patient and playing one shot at a time. Instead of thinking about your swing or your putting motion or missing cuts or winning and losing, resolve to play each shot for what it’s worth.

“Those are the challenges we all face.”

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It’s official. Tiger Woods has entered next week’s Nissan Open at Riviera.

Woods has won both tournaments he’s played this year, the PGA Tour’s Buick Invitational and the European Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic, each one in a playoff.

Woods never has won the Nissan Open, but he came close at Valencia Country Club in 1998 when he lost to Billy Mayfair in a one-hole sudden death playoff.

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Is Jack coming back? There is simmering speculation that Jack Nicklaus may not be done playing the Masters, and that Augusta National Chairman Hootie Johnson could be urging Nicklaus to come back and play one final time.

Last year, Nicklaus said he was done at Augusta, but if he comes back for a final bow, it would conclude a notable timeline -- the 20th anniversary of his sixth and final Masters triumph, which was also his 18th and last major victory.

Nicklaus, 68, seemed to leave the door slightly open last week.

“I haven’t made up my mind what I’m going to do,” he said. “I hope I’m smart enough not to take my golf clubs.”

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Mark O’Meara on the concept of lengthening courses to combat longer hitters: “You don’t neutralize power players by making the courses longer. You make the courses longer, they already have an advantage, now you’re giving them more of an advantage. That’s not real smart, is it?

“If I could tell Hootie, I said if it was me, I would take out the secondary cut of rough. Would that put fear in a guy like Tiger Woods? You’re either in the fairway at Augusta National or you are in the pine trees.”

Chris DiMarco on the same subject: “I think if you look at Vijay [Singh], Tiger, Phil [Mickelson] ... they knew they could hit a wedge out of the rough on the green. Obviously, they did OK last year. But being in the fairway is not a prime thing anymore. It’s not a very important thing. It is for me, but it isn’t for them.”

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There’s been a charge into the vineyards by the pros in recent years, with Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Ernie Els and David Frost -- to name a few -- coming out with their own labels of wine. Now, the field is about to get a little more crowded with the news that the PGA Tour is going to provide some competition to its own players, coming out with PGA Tour Wines.

Created by Bermuda Triangle Ventures, a PGA Tour licensee, the wines are all California varietals and will be available in three price levels, with the top Commissioner’s Private Reserve wines ranging from $38 to $44 a bottle.

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This week

PGA TOUR

Pebble Beach National Pro-Am

* Site: Pebble Beach.

* Schedule: Today-Sunday.

* Courses: Pebble Beach Golf Links (6,737 yards, par 72), Spyglass Hill Golf Course (6,993 yards, par 72) and Poppy Hills Golf Course (6,833 yards, par 72).

* Purse: $5.4 million. Winner’s share: $972,000.

* Television: USA (Today-Friday, noon-3 p.m.) and Channel 2 (Saturday, noon-3 p.m.; Sunday, noon-3:30 p.m.).

* Last year: Phil Mickelson won for the second straight week, beating Mike Weir by five strokes.

* Last week: J.B. Holmes won the FBR Open in his fourth tournament since joining the PGA Tour, finishing with a seven-stroke victory and 21-under 263 total.

AUSTRALASIAN PGA TOUR

Johnnie Walker Classic

* Site: Perth, Australia.

* Schedule: Today-Sunday.

* Course: The Vines Resort and Country Club (7,089 yards, par 72).

* Purse: $2.17 million. Winner’s share: $365,340.

* Television: The Golf Channel (Today-Sunday, 6-9 a.m.).

* Last year: Australia’s Adam Scott won at Pine Valley in Beijing, holding off South Africa’s Retief Goosen by three strokes.