Davis Love III ties course record at Honda Classic
In the calmest conditions of the day, Love, 47, aced the par-3 fifth with a 5-iron from 197 yards and added five other birdies on the Champion Course in the morning wave of tee times to confirm that his intentions to make the Ryder Cup team are not a pipe dream.
Love has said he will play on the team if he makes it on points. He, however, has not said if he would make himself one of his four captain's picks. Either way, he is determined to make every effort to become the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer went 3-3 in a 23-9 victory by the USA in 1963.
"I switch modes from Tuesday and now I'm thinking about playing," said Love, who spoke about the Ryder Cup in a news conference earlier this year. "I've been hitting the ball very well for a while now. I just needed to get off to a good start.
"When I talk to friends, they say your goal shouldn't be just to play good today. Your goal should be to be the FedExCup champion and to make the Ryder Cup Team and to win all the majors. Because drive, that's what makes you work hard every day, come out and play hard every day and be focused.
"I need to be ready for every week right now and do my best to move back up (the points list for the Ryder Cup)."
Love, who has 20 Tour wins but none since 2008, has not talked with past captains about his intentions to double up at the Ryder Cup. More than a few captains have talked about the stress and grind of just being a captain. But Love is undaunted, no matter how tough it will be to make the team.
"We have a lot of guys playing really well," Love said. "Obviously Tiger (Woods) has not played a whole lot and he'll be earning a lot of points. You're going to have a lot of good, young guys, which is nice. They are going to fight it out. I hope they keep making the putts they have been making.
"As I get to know these guys better, it's going to be tough for me to pick four and tell four others that they didn't make it. That's going to be really tough."
Woods had a tough time scoring in his professional debut here. He needed 34 putts and shot 71 and now needs to make a solid move to get in contention.
"I hit a lot of pure putts today," Woods said. "They rolled over a lot of edges. They just didn't quite go in. I didn't get a whole lot out of my round. I hit the ball a lot better than I scored and I certainly putted well, and I hardly got anything out of the round. Hopefully (Friday) it will be better."
Few have been better than McIlroy, who has five top-5 finishes in his last six starts. McIlroy's lone mistake was a three-putt bogey on the eighth hole.
"I feel a lot different," McIlroy said as he compared McIlroy 2012 to the 2011 version that won the U.S. Open. "I might be a little more focused on what I'm doing. I'm working harder than ever. And I haven't really reaped the rewards of it yet. I've been very consistent, but I haven't won. I've played three tournaments this year and had a couple of chances to win.
"I feel like it's very close."