Two-time Players champion Davis Love III won’t miss his fifth Furyk & Friends

Two-time Players champion is one of five World Golf Hall of Fame members in this week’s field at the Timuquana Country Club

• Despite a Hall of Fame career, golfer Davis Love III has battled numerous injuries and surgeries in recent years.
• Love is set to compete in the Constellation Furyk & Friends tournament after recovering from heart surgery and other ailments.
• Off the course, Love stays busy with his golf course design firm, restaurant co-ownership, and managing his own PGA Tour event.

Sports fans may admire most the athletes who make it look easy. 

Few PGA Tour stars had a smoother, easier swing than Davis Love III. It carried him to the World Golf Hall of Fame with 37 worldwide victories (21 on the PGA Tour), highlighted by the 1997 PGA Championship and the 1992 and 2003 Players Championships. 

The swing he puts out there at the Timuquana Country Club this weekend at the Senior PGA Tour Constellation Furyk & Friends (Oct. 3-5) still looks sweet. 

But the body parts that go into it have been operated on, poked, prodded, stuck with needles and even replaced in the 61-year-old St. Simons Island, Ga., resident’s drive to stay competitive. 

How will he play at the Timuquana Country Club? 

“Jim Furyk and I were laughing last week at the Ryder Cup that if we play it’s going to be an experiment,” Love said of the tournament host who has been having his own health issues and will make his first start of the season after hip replacement surgery on April 15.  

“You have to start somewhere and I hate to miss Jim and Tabitha’s tournament,” Love went on. “I’m hitting balls on the Track Man and it seems like it’s getting better. But it’s an unknown unless you actually get out there.” 

Love has perfect attendance at the Furyk & Friends: this is his fifth start in five years. He tied for 11th in 2021 and tied for seventh in 2022. 

Love is one-up on Furyk for replacement surgery 

Love will see Jim Furyk one hip replacement and raise him one and his two hip replacement surgeries are just part of the litany of ailments for Love in the past decade: 

• He had torn ligaments in both thumbs, with surgery on his right thumb in 2024 that kept him off the golf course for eight months. Love is undergoing what he called “experimental” treatment on his left thumb. 
• He’s torn ligaments in both wrists. 
• Arthritis in both wrists has been an ongoing issue. 
• And in January, Love underwent heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic to replace what doctors called a “leaky valve.” The surgery had been planned well in advance, but it kept Love inactive for four months. 

“Tiger [Woods] and I are in a competition to see who can be hurt the most over the last 10 years,” Love said. 

Business interests are keeping Davis Love occupied 

Regardless of his injuries, Love hasn’t slowed down with his off-course activities. 

His only regret about playing in the Furyk & Friends is that he’s missing a charity BBQ contest sponsored by Southern Soul, the popular restaurant he co-owns in St. Simons Island. Love is also a partner with Frosty’s an ice cream and burger joint. 

His golf course architecture firm, Love Golf Design, recently finished a “restoration” of the Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, S.C., where he won five times and is re-opening in November. 

Love is also overseeing some changes to the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, the site of his two Players victories, and spruced up Michael Jordan’s private course in south Florida, Grove XXIII, and did bunkering work on a course in Montana owned by Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank. 

Love said the golf boom since the COVID-19 pandemic has opened the door for more work. 

“The golf course design business is rocking and rolling,” Love said. “Everyone’s busy, with courses being built and renovated. It’s high-pressure stuff. You don’t want to mess up Harbour Town, and you want to make sure you honor Pete Dye. We did a little work this summer at the TPC Sawgrass. The next two or three years are going to be real busy.” 

Love also has his own tournament to manage, the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic that will be played for the 16th time Nov. 20-23 at the Sea Island Club. 

Davis Love is tamping down expectations 

Love has played a total of six PGA Tour Champions events over the past two seasons and attempted to play the RSM Classic last year, withdrawing after the first round due to wrist pain. 

He last played in the American Family Insurance Championship, a team event in which he partnered with Scott Verplank. They tied for 34th. 

“I don’t have many expectations,” he said. “I’ve been gradually doing more in the last six or seven weeks. I’ve played rounds of golf. Played in a nine-hole scramble with my granddaughter. It’s been golf for fun.” 

Love does have one goal. 

“I’d like to see a whole year of not having to withdraw,” he said. “No surgery. I’d like to play steady for a while.”