Davis Love Wants Tiger Woods Back at Presidents Cup
With everybody talking about Tiger Wood’s ongoing recovery, we can’t help but hope we will get to see him back in the golf scene. Woods has always helped bring inspiration to many the events he’s been involved in. Plus, he has copius amounts of knowledge that are bound to help even the most casual golfer.
Davis Love III would be more than happy to have Tiger Woods serve as one of his assistants at next year’s Presidents Cup.
He’d rather have him at Quail Hollow in Charlotte playing.
Love is the 2022 U.S. Presidents Cup captain after twice serving as a U.S. Ryder Cup captain and as an assistant in 2018 as well as this year’s victory at Whistling Straits.
It’s a role Woods himself is familiar with as recently as two years ago, at the Presidents Cup. The U.S. nabbed the victory in Melbourne that year as well. The next event will take place in North Carolina and is returning after being forced to reschedule thanks to quarantine last year. Love said he had hoped Woods would continue his captaincy.
:Holding Out Hope
“It would have been a great captaincy for Tiger to continue on,” Love said Tuesday at the RSM Classic, where he is the tournament host. “At the time we were discussing it, he said, ‘No, I’m playing really good. I’m gonna make the team, and I enjoyed Australia being playing captain, but I want to be a player on the team.’
“So his role is whatever his role wants to be. If Tiger calls me up and says, ‘Hey, you’re kicked out, I’m taking over’ — that’s Tiger’s role. If he wants to be an assistant, you know … I would hope that he comes back and starts playing and can make that a goal, to be on the team.”
Of course, all of this happened prior to this year’s crash that put Woods in rehab for most of 2021. Given his relative silence regarding a return, it’s not likely Woods will compete in the near future. Love made it clear that he will be happy with any capacity Tiger is able to be involved. He pointed to Woods’ involvement with the U.S. Ryder Cup team and the benefits it brought to the golfers.
“It took us a while to get him to the point where he would engage,” Love said. “Obviously he had a rough start to the year, but once we got him in the loop, he was a big help and a lot of fun for the Ryder Cup and for the team. Obviously the guys were going to see him down there in South Florida all summer. He can do whatever, and I know he’ll be a big part of it.”
Someone To Look Up To
As for what Woods brought to the Ryder Cup team, Love said that Woods “can give a little more insight” to a few of the players.
“Tiger went from a guy we didn’t know to now he’s a leader and an inside guy,” Love said. “So he has good information on some of the players that we don’t know.
“He was really helpful in captains’ picks. I think for me, in ’16 [when Love was Ryder Cup captain and Woods was an assistant] and then as an assistant captain, he’s very helpful in strategy and pairings. He’s a tactician. He watches a lot more golf than I do, so he has a lot of information.”
Woods, 45, has not played an official event since the postponed 2020 Masters in November of last year.
Read the original article on ESPN.
