Despite brutal wind, Love manages 3-under 70  PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents KAPALUA, Hawaii -- If Davis Love III had been here on vacation, he probably would have spent Thursday by the pool at the Ritz-Carlton. No amount of coaxing by his son, Dru, or one of his buddies would have lured Love out on the picturesque but pernicious Plantation Course at Kapalua. And Love is a man who loves playing here. "I've always said, with a golf cart and shorts, this is one of the most fun golf courses to play," Love said. "It's a neat golf course. It's different than anything you've ever seen, and it's big and it's wide and it's windy and it's interesting greens, and it's fun to play." Just not in trade winds gusting upwards of 40 mph like the ones that dictated play in Thursday's first round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship. 
How bad was it? Well, as he was walking up the ninth hole, Vijay Singh, golf's ultimate gym rat, told his playing partner, Ben Curtis, "If we had to play golf in this weather, I think I'll quit." Still, Love and Singh managed to prosper on the Plantation Course. Singh was tied for the lead with K.J. Choi, Will MacKenzie, Brett Wetterich and Stephen Ames at 4 under while Love was one stroke behind. Love is playing in his 12th Mercedes-Benz Championship, and the 2001 champion has seven top-10 finishes on the Plantation Course. He started coming to Maui, though, in 1986 for the unofficial Lincoln-Mercury Kapalua International. "This is probably as bad as I've seen it," Love said of the wind. "Maybe it's blown that hard one day or afternoon, but that's about as hard as I've seen it." Love recalls some very different days at Kapalua before the Mercedes-Benz Championship moved here, though. He and his friends would have shown up in the dark and teed off as the sun came up. "We would have zipped around in our carts and had a bet with Andy Bean and all the guys, and we would have had a game and be done by ten o'clock and then goofed off the rest of the day," he said. "That was more vacation, obviously, than this one. We didn't have FedExCup points and Presidents Cup points riding on it and everything." Love has put himself in position to collect some of those all-important points after the round of 70 that included five birdies and two bogeys. He hit 12 of 15 of the generous fairways and all but five greens where he took just 29 putts. Love said he was just glad to "survive" what he called "pretty trying conditions." Not unexpected, though. "We're used to it blowing here," Love said. "Really there is enough room to play when it blows this hard, and a lot of routes around the golf course that you can survive. If you can putt well and don't make any big mistakes, you can play well. If you make a lot of mistakes and you don't putt well, these kind of conditions will make you shoot a high score. "I hung in there real well. I just hooked one drive and cut one drive with the wind. You can get out of play really quick. They were both on narrow holes, but you can get out of play really quick if you get it going with the wind, but all in all, (it was) a good day." Love said he needed a 5-iron for his second shot at the third hole where he would normally take a wedge or an 8-iron at the most. Conversely, the 19-time TOUR champ reached the downhill, 663-yard 18th with a 4-iron. Such are the challenges of the trademark trade winds that complicate an already vexing game when played on the Hawaiian Islands. Ames said the last time he played in such strong winds was Saturday at the 2002 British Open at Muirfield. No less than Tiger Woods shot 81 that day. Thursday wasn't that brutal but only 12 of the 34 players competing at Kapalua this week managed to break par. "Last week it would have been awful nice to play the tournament, you know, because it was beautiful and calm," Love said. "Some guys get pretty frustrated when the wind blows this hard. You have to be very, very patient with it. "You know, maybe that's good for some guys who have not been playing a whole lot. You're not really having to go out and hit precision ball striking. It's more hit the ball solid, keep it into the wind and not make mistakes, and putt well. "It's more of a mental battle than it is, you know, a ball striking contest." Love knows all about mental battles after a 2006 campaign where he waged one with himself as he struggled to make what would have been his sixth straight Ryder Cup team. When he didn't, oddly enough, the pressure was off and Love played some of his best golf of the season. The week after the team was finalized at the PGA Championship, Love went to Firestone Country Club and finished fourth at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. He took a month off and promptly returned to win his second Chrysler Classic of Greensboro -- which earned him a trip to Maui. "I'm still working hard on my game and trying to get better," said Love, who had three of his four top-10s of 2006 in his four events after the PGA Championship. "I think a little bit of confidence goes a long way, and I think I got that at the Bridgestone right after the team was picked. I started to play a little bit better because I did relax and started playing my own game a little bit better." Just like he did on Thursday. |
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