Davis Love III may be comfortable in his own skin, but he wasn’t so happy with the belly putter he had in his bag last week in Hilton Head. “What I’ve determined is [there’s nothing magical about] the belly and long putter,” Love told us in a phone interview Thursday. “If there were, everyone would have one.”
It was likely a bout with the stomach flu more than problems with the gut putter that knocked Love out of contention at the Heritage. With rounds of 76 and 73, the 2012 Ryder Cup captain missed the cut for just the fifth time in 26 consecutive years at Harbour Town Golf Links.
As he made the media rounds pitching his Dove Men + Care Journey to Comfort ad campaign, Love was feeling much better about his health, if not so kindly toward the oversized flat stick. After making several putter changes this year, he said he was leaning heavily toward ditching the big bat and heeding his son’s advice to pick a stick and stay with it.
Fundamentals. In addition to working with putting maestro Brad Faxon, Love said he was returning to “the fundamentals -- my pre-shot routine, my wedge game, bunker shots -- to take the pressure off my putting.”
Whether you use a 46-inch putter, a 22-inch model, or employ a one-handed stroke -- as PGA Tour pro Mike Hulbert did in 1995 -- it’s all in your head, Love noted.
“It’s a matter of being confident,” he said. “If you think it’s going to go in, it will go in.”
Jim Furyk, Love noted, practiced with a long putter for three weeks last year. “Then he went back to a short putter and won the FedEx Cup,” he said.
Furyk was hardly the only professional golfer to branch out in crazy directions in the never-ending quest to one-putt. “Beth Daniel [LPGA Hall of Famer and 2009 Solheim Cup captain] had the yips so bad, she putted looking at the hole and won seven tournaments,” Love said. “Eventually, she went back to looking at the ball.”
Love, who said he “was betting right now” he would dump the belly putter, did not advocate outlawing them. But he was not so keen on players using them to take relief or in penalty situations.
No relief. “I’m always uncomfortable when a guy has a putter longer than his driver and he’s using it to measure two club lengths when he’s dropping the ball,” he said. “That ought to be looked at.”
Meanwhile, Tiger Woods’ blood may be spinning at the moment. Read how Anthony Galea, the doctor who helped Woods recover from knee surgery with a blood-spinning technique, is talking with the feds about charges he supplied performance-enhancing drugs to pro athletes.
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