CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Davis Love III, this week’s interview subject for “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” is a Hall of Fame golfer who was born in Charlotte and starred in college for the University of North Carolina.
But Love isn’t just a great golfer who earned 21 PGA Tour victories. He also helped get Michael Jordan started in golf when the two of them were going to school in the 1980s at UNC.
Love also will serve as captain of the U.S. team that will play an international team in the Presidents Cup from Sept. 22-25. That event will be held in Charlotte for the first time, at Quail Hollow Club, amid the backdrop of LIV Golf turmoil.
Championed by golfers like Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf tour has roiled the professional golf world. Love isn’t the least bit happy about it, calling the controversy “heart-wrenching, disappointing and sometimes infuriating.”
Here are some highlights from our interview, conducted in Love’s hometown of Sea Island, Ga., shortly before the Presidents Cup begins. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
— Scott Fowler: Can you explain the Presidents Cup to somebody who has never heard of it before?
— Davis Love III: It’s our All-Star game. It’s our Super Bowl. It’s our World Series. We don’t get to play as a team but once a year.
We play Ryder Cup one year and then play the Presidents Cup the next year. And it’s our chance to represent our country. We’ve got the flag on our hats and our shirts, and they play the national anthem before we tee off. It’s a huge event. And the build-out at Quail Hollow — if you’ve been to the Wells Fargo or the PGA Championship there, this is a lot bigger.
— SF: So you’re the captain of the Presidents Cup team. What does a captain actually do?
— DL: The main thing a captain does is worry about things until it actually starts (laughs). Our job as captains is just to help the players get ready to play. They know how to play golf. It’s just organization. We do a lot of statistical work and analytics — “Moneyball” kind of stuff.
We’re just coaches, really. Guys like Jordan (Spieth) and Justin (Thomas) — they won’t have any problem. They’ve been at this a while. For the rookies like Cam Young — we need to hold his hand a little bit until he gets there, and make sure that he’s doing the things to be ready.
— SF: The Presidents Cup is one of the PGA Tour’s signature events, but it will be played in a year where LIV Golf has caused all sorts of conflict in the golf world. How will the shadow of LIV Golf affect this Presidents Cup?
— DL: Well, first of all, it knocks out a bunch of players. So that’s disappointing. But the Presidents Cup is just one tournament on the PGA Tour that these guys (who joined LIV Golf) are taking a chance on never getting to play again. So that’s both heart-wrenching, disappointing and sometimes infuriating that we’re having to deal with this. ... It’s just very sad for the game.
For Trevor Immelman’s (international) team, he took a big hit from top to bottom (losing players like world No. 2 Cameron Smith to LIV Golf, as well as several others). We lost potential players — Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch.
But what I keep saying is our first 12 is really good, and our second 12 is really good. They’re just different names. ... Trevor’s problem is his first 12 was really good and the second 12 was maybe not quite as good… We have always had the depth.
LIV Golf ‘not good for the game’
— SF: You had a conversation with Dustin Johnson before he joined LIV Golf. Describe that, and some of your other issues with this new tour.
— DL: Dustin was very honest. He has been my best teammate and player on teams where I was the assistant captain. ... He’s the most committed guy we had on the (American) team. He did not act like a superstar one time. So that conversation was hard. But he said, “I made a financial decision and a business decision. I thought about it long and hard.”
And you have to respect the guy that tells you that. ... But the guys that lie to you, or tell you that they’re right and the (PGA) tour is wrong — I have a problem (with that). And I don’t think I’ll ever get over that.
Now if any of those 18 guys or whatever say, “We want to come back. Will you help me?” I’m the first one to go to bat for him, to try to make it work out. I believe in grace and forgiveness. But for now, as (PGA commissioner) Jay Monahan eloquently said, “Let me remind you, they are suing us.” So right now, it’s a fight, unfortunately.
.... Arnie (Palmer) and Jack (Nicklaus) basically built hospitals (with the charity-directed proceeds) of their golf tournaments. They gave back more than they took.
The LIV Tour model is not giving back. They want all the tours and the NCAA and amateur golf to feed them stars for their little select league. And that’s their first priority. ... They want to be the No. 1 league, which is a great goal. But it’s not going to be good for the game — If the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour are relegated to feeder tours for the LIV Golf tour.
— SF: Does it bother you more where the money is coming from — that this is money from the Saudi Arabia — or more that this is a threat to the PGA Tour way of life?
— DL: The threat is the big problem. Trevor Immelman (the Presidents Cup international captain) explained it to me very well: The rest of the world really doesn’t have as much a problem with the Saudis as we, the United States, does. ... I’m not speaking out against the Saudis, or their investment fund. I’m speaking out against a golf organization that’s trying to tear down the PGA Tour tradition and the honored traditions of the game of golf.
So, I’m taking some shots at Greg Norman, because this is his second go-around at it. And obviously, he has the will and now the means.
Like Jay Monahan said, if this is a war of dollars, we don’t have a chance. But if it’s history and legacy and tradition and the right values, then we should.
Michael Jordan, golf and snakes
— SF: To totally change topics, there are a number of conflicting stories out there about how you turned Michael Jordan into a golfer, or how much you had to do with it. What’s the real story?
— DL: The real story of Michael Jordan’s golf game is in the building there with Michael and the team at Charlotte. It’s Buzz Peterson (Jordan’s close friend and teammate at UNC and now the Charlotte Hornets’ assistant general manager).
Buzz was supposedly the hotshot coming in as a freshman, not this Michael Jordan kid. And the great thing about Buzz is he liked to play golf. So I was a year behind them. But I was on the golf team, and I liked watching basketball, and we all hit it off.
I got to be friends with Buzz, and Buzz came out and played golf. So did Coach Smith and his assistant coach Roy Williams, and so did a lot of other guys around the team. And the next thing you know, we were all on the golf course.
At first Michael was just tagging along with Buzz. He’d ride in the cart or come out and hang out watch us hit balls. We started him off keeping score. And what did that lead to? He’s keeping track of the bets. He knew how to gamble on golf before he could even hit a golf ball.
And then he just couldn’t take it anymore. He said “I want to hit one.” You know, to watch Brad Daugherty and Michael Jordan hit their first golf balls was one of the highlights of my career ...
The best was that Michael and Brad had a rule that at Finley, our golf course on campus, if the ball went in the woods there was an imaginary red line. So they can take a drop, because there might be snakes in the woods. They weren’t even going to look for the ball, because one of us gave it to them, and there might be a snake in there.
So Michael started just hitting it around. Obviously he went on to be Michael Jordan, and I went on to play on the PGA Tour, and our paths crossed rarely ... except at the Ryder Cup. Now that we’re getting ready for Charlotte, we’ve communicated a little bit. He’ll come out and hang out in the team room and come out and watch.
— SF: Does an event like this draw other celebrities besides, well, presidents (it is expected that at least one former U.S. President comes to the event)?
— DL: That’s what’s so cool about the Presidents Cup. Jimmie Johnson wants to come out and watch golf and hang out. Michael Jordan wants to come out and watch it. (Singer) Darius Rucker is going to be there all week.
Our friends that are superstars in other things like it. Michael Phelps stood in the fairway at the first Ryder Cup in 2012 and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life….” And we’ve had you know, (surfer) Kelly Slater and Bill Murray and all kinds of guys who just want to come and be around the team.
