After Setbacks, Surgeries, Love Fires Back With 69

SAN DIEGO, June 13 -- Davis Love III has endured many competitive ordeals during 23 years as a professional golfer. He has played in six Ryder Cups, where the tension can surpass that of a major championship. He has been in the thick of many of those scrums, too, having participated in 19 U.S. Opens and 18 Masters.

Love summoned the fortitude to win a major in the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot, widely considered one of the most diabolical courses in the world. He also helped the United States capture the Ryder Cup in 1999 at Brookline in one of the most contentious international matches on record.

Such accomplishments have underscored Love's tenacity on the fairways and greens. These days, Love is on a quest to recapture that steely confidence after consecutive medical setbacks, including ankle surgery in early October last year.

Shooting a 2-under-par 69 at the U.S. Open on Friday may be precisely the jolt Love needs.

"I think physically I can play the game," said Love, whose two-day total of 141 left him tied for third place at Torrey Pines, "and I think if I get on a roll, get my confidence going, I can have a few more really, really good years, and possibly great."

With one of the most fluid swings ever, Love has endeared himself to galleries accustomed to watching the long hitter from North Carolina go yard for yard on the fairways with the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and, in his better days, John Daly. That trademark length came so easily, it seemed, that some of his most successful peers often marveled at his game.

Love, 44, is now easing his way back into the sport with an understanding that the process probably will be lengthy and require the utmost forbearance. The first significant setback was when Love could not play in the Masters.

"A lot of people said that week, 'Oh, it's a shame,' " Love said of missing the first major of the year. "I said: 'You know what? Guys get hurt and don't get to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and they get hurt and don't get to play in the NBA Finals or the World Series.'

"So I have looked at it that way, that if I hadn't have got hurt, I would have kept on playing through September, October, and I might have kept my position and could have started off in Hawaii and maybe been a little more prepared to try to get into the Masters. So I took it with a grain of salt."

Love even appeared to appreciate the irony of it all when discussing the nature of his injury and the fallout from it. He tore ligaments in his left ankle in late September 2007 while playing a leisurely round of golf.

"My mom, I don't think she still actually believes that I stepped in a hole," Love said. "I think that she thinks I must have done something, like fallen off a motorcycle or something."

That injury came a few months after Love required surgery for kidney stones, saying then he felt as if he were "punched in the side."

Rehabilitation from ankle surgery is ongoing for Love, who admitted to doing absolutely nothing golf-related in the first few months after the procedure. Love was in the gym two days following surgery, though, working out his upper body while his ankle was in stitches and bandages.

"And it wasn't fun," Love said. "Most of it wasn't fun. But it was a challenge, and I'm still doing stuff. There will be a bag of ice tonight. And [doctors] said it would take me a year [to recover fully], so I'm still keeping after it. . . . I think as long as I stay positive and keep playing hard that good things will happen."