For the Mitsubishi Electric Classic, golfer Davis Love III made his return after enduring open heart surgery. The surgery itself was a long time coming, with the first signs being detected as far back as ten years ago. Now he is back in action and ready to defend his titles.
Love’s Heart Issues
The problem Love needed addressed was a leaky heart valve. This came as a surprise for Love, who said that he didn’t feel anything wrong and would have likely missed it entirely.
“I had no symptoms, I never felt bad. I never had anything other than a little bit of high blood pressure. So I could have walked right into a tragedy, and they prevented that, so I feel very blessed.”
Love also recalled his heart specialist talking with him about his heart, and he was surprised that they were able to hear it through a stethoscope.
Recovery
Love’s recovery wasn’t any more difficult than expected, unlike Gary Woodland’s recovery. The recovery period was fairly long, with just his ribs taking three months. He still didn’t like it, being ordered to stay cooped up at home and not allowed to do much. Love has said that he’s “not very patient at all.”
He was given twelve weeks for his ribs to heal, and was told that he could start putting again. Didn’t stop him from going to the gym the day he got out of the hospital for a good walk, or from cleaning horse stalls.
It was his daughter who suggested he start putting in early because he was cleaning those stalls, and that was far harder work than what he did on the green. He wasn’t cleared to do full swings until this last April because of his ribs. Love is the kind of person who doesn’t like sitting down or resting too long. He was already itching to do something straight out of the hospital and carried that energy throughout his recovery.
Love’s Return
Now that he’s all patched up, love plans on returning to the PGA Tour Champions. Although he has never won, he plans on breaking Mark Brooks’ record of most starts at 803. Love is rearing to go and increase his current count of 790. He did have to miss quite a few chances for that in the past year because of this recovery time as well as a thumb surgery he had last April. Tiger Woods is going through something similar after his last injury. On his return, Love says that he’s just happy to be back with his fellow golfers.
“It’s nice to be back. I mainly came to see all my friends,” Love said. “Billy Andrade called me on my birthday. He goes, ‘Man, I hope we see you soon and not just on facetime.’ It really hit me that I really haven’t seen guys.”
Davis Love can now look forward to seeing his buddies and competing for glory. With a now clean bill of health and a boring recovery, no one is more eager than he. Fans can look forward to seeing him bring all that built-up energy he couldn’t get out fast enough during recovery.
Main Photo Credit: © Bill Ingram / USA TODAY NETWORK
