Player Blog: Davis Love III  Special to PGATOUR.com Editor's note: Davis Love III has won 19 times on the PGA TOUR, including the 1999 PGA Championship. He missed his most recent title defense last week at the Wyndham Championship because he had to have lithotripsy to remove a kidney stone. He's feeling fine now, though, and he's playing in The Barclays, where he opened with a 69 on Thursday. He filed this blog when he was done. HARRISON, N.Y. -- It's been quite a week. I had the lithotripsy done early last Friday morning and I was pretty sore the rest of the day. It basically felt like I had been punched in the side. I felt a little better on Saturday, and the doctor said I could chip and putt. I actually hit a few balls, too. Then I went out Sunday, practiced and even played 12 holes, so I was probably ahead of doctor's orders. After that, though, I had a little bit of a setback where I felt like I had overdone it a little bit, so I didn't practice that much on Monday, but by Tuesday I felt fine. So as I keep saying, I didn't realize how bad I was feeling until I got it over with. Today I felt like I was 25 again. I just felt great. It's hard to believe that one little rock can screw up your whole body.  The Playoffs will become more compelling to fans when they see players getting knocked out, says Davis Love III. (Travis Lindquist/WireImage)
I've had kidney stones off and on for the last 10 years. But they thought I'd passed this one so, they didn't really go looking hard for it. And then they sent me back out to play again at Akron and the PGA, but I kept having the symptoms. It never put me completely out of commission but after the PGA I went back and told the doctors, look, this is not getting better. So they did an X-ray with dye, and that's when they said, 'this is one you are not going to pass, and if you don't get it out you're going to be in serious pain.' He said 'you could make it a week or two, but you're not going to make it five in a row, so you may as well do it while you can schedule it.' That's why I had to go ahead and have the procedure. I didn't want to come up here to play in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup and have the kidney stones knock me out. The competition is going to be tough enough. It's exciting to see the Playoffs actually begin. Now that it is happening and now that some guys are going to get cut this week, fans are going to see that the Playoffs actually have some validity. Guys are going to move up and maybe pass Tiger. I think it means a lot. If it was a money thing and somebody won the tournament and won $1 million, they still would not pass Tiger. When fans see the way the points work and realize that, hey, if a guy doesn't play well or if he skips an event or he misses a cut, somebody else is going to win. I think people like to root for the underdog. They want to watch Tiger but they also want to see somebody try to beat them. Vijay can finish top 10 or so this week, and he'll move past Tiger. So, sure, we miss him playing whenever he doesn't, but he's never played four weeks in a row anyway. He's got his strategy to try to win. Vijay has his strategy, and mine is to come from 80th. And I feel good about the way I played today. I still hit some bad drives which I'm going to try to fix but I made some putts. Overall, I played well. I scrambled and hung in there pretty good, so I'm happy. You know, I finished the pro am yesterday and one of my playing partners said, 'Thanks. It was fun.' I said, 'I wish I had played a little better, but this is my first 18 hole round since the PGA.' I told him that last Friday I was under anesthesia so he was pretty surprised. When you look at it that way, I'm happy to be playing. But I'm excited about going forward because I do feel so much better. Like I said, I'm 80th in the FedExCup standings. I'm pretty safe for a couple of weeks of the Playoffs, but I've got to move up to play the third week at the BMW Championship and I've got to move up to play the fourth week in Atlanta. So I might as well move up in big chunks and try to contend. I did this last year. I played well at Akron, won in Greensboro, got in THE TOUR Championship and had a decent finish to the year. Hopefully, that's the way it will happen this year -- I'll get on a roll and then do something good in the next few weeks. You know, it sure would be nice to have a chance with a week or two to go. |
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