A Good Walk Spoiled by John Feinstein

Author:John Feinstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation / General, Sports & Recreation / Gymnastics
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2014-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

No one on tour was looking forward to the Masters more than Davis Love III. A week shy of his thirtieth birthday, Love had already accomplished more in golf than 95 percent of the players in the world will accomplish in a lifetime. He had won eight tournaments, been a Ryder Cup hero, and made enough money on and off the golf course to guarantee his family’s future and buy an $800,000 airplane.

But none of that was what he had set out to do in golf. He was nine when he told his father he wanted to be a golf pro. He was eighteen when he and his father began plotting his future with one thought in mind: how to someday be the best player in the world.

The best player in the world is not someone who wins in Las Vegas and Greensboro. He wins at Augusta and at Oakmont and at St. Andrews and Turnberry. Love had never done that. His record in the majors, especially considering his accomplishments elsewhere, was awful. He had never finished in the top ten at any major, his highest finish being a tie for eleventh at the 1991 U.S. Open. His best finish in the Masters had been a tie for twenty-fifth in 1992 and, in all, he had three top-twenty finishes in majors in his career.

Love did not sit around making excuses for his failures in the majors. He didn’t rationalize and point to his other accomplishments because that is not his way. His goal for 1994 was simple and direct: play better in the majors.

“I’m very proud of the fact that I won the Players Championship [1992] and of all the tournaments I’ve won,” he said. “But the fact is, when I’m done, I don’t want to be introduced as the winner of eight tournaments or a former Ryder Cupper. I want to be introduced as the champion of a major.”

In a sense, winning major championships is what Davis Love was bred to do. His father, Davis Love Jr., was talented enough to play in the Masters at sixteen as an amateur. He never made it to the tour, but he did become one of the most renowned golf teachers in the country. His two most important pupils were Davis and his brother Mark, who is two years younger.

Davis Love Jr. never forced golf on either son. Both boys played other sports. When Davis played peewee hockey, his father got up at 5 A.M. to drive him to practice. When Davis showed an interest in fishing, Davis Jr. found out which member of the Atlanta Country Club (where he worked at the time) knew the most about fishing and introduced him to his son.

He never told Davis or Mark that he had to play golf, but his attitude always was “if you’re going to do something, you do it all out and you do it right.” When Davis made it clear that golf was what he wanted to do, it became as much his father’s obsession as his—maybe more.

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