Davis Love III understands.
Before the 2006 Ryder Cup in Ireland, Love tried to make then-captain Tom Lehman’s job easier by steering him away from selecting him as a captain’s pick.
“I told him, ‘Don’t pick me because I don’t feel good and I’m not playing well,’ ’’ Love told The Post on Friday after he missed The Barclays cut. “I told him exactly how I felt and how I was playing and tried to make it easy on him, because I knew it was hard for him to leave me off after I had played six in a row.’’
As next month’s Ryder Cup at Medinah fast approaches, don’t expect any of the half-dozen or so players who are under Love’s consideration for the four remaining spots on the team to call him and beg off.
The situation facing Love is quite the opposite, in fact. The pool of six or seven players he’s eyeing are all in form and wholly belong and deserve to be on the team.
And, entering today’s final round of The Barclays Championship at Bethpage Black, the players fighting for their Ryder Cup lives are faced with a serious case of multi-tasking.
There is big money to be won, playoffs to advance through and the prestigious Ryder Cup on the horizon, with the chase for all of those things occurring simultaneously.
Love, who’s played on six Ryder Cup teams, understands the strains the players are under as well as anyone.
“I just try to tell them to just play golf and stay away from points and cups and all that sort of stuff,’’ Love said. “It’s tough to do. It’s hard to just play golf and not think about it. But, like one of my advisors told me, ‘If they can’t handle that then they can’t handle the pressure of the Ryder Cup.’ So I guess this is a good warm-up.’’
At the end of the four-week FedEx Cup playoff rainbow is a $10 million first prize that goes to the winner.
More important than that to many players is being a part of the Ryder Cup, which takes place the week after the Tour Championship, the last week of September.
“I definitely can’t say that I haven’t thought about Ryder Cup or will not be thinking about the Ryder Cup,’’ said Rickie Fowler, who did not qualify for the team on points and is hoping to be a captain’s pick. “I’m trying to block it out of my head, but the reality is I’d love to be playing on Ryder Cup team. I can’t put too much pressure on myself and try to do too much.’’
Fowler, who tumbled down the leaderboard yesterday with a 75, is one of the players on Love’s radar. The others are veterans Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk, along with Hunter Mahan, Dustin Johnson and Brandt Snedeker. Nick Watney, who enters today two shots out of The Barclays lead, is trying to force his way into the discussion.
Love, who faces making the same difficult decisions his predecessors had to make on teams he was a part of, will announce his picks on Sept. 4 at the NASDAQ Marketsite in Manhattan.
“You’ve got a bunch of guys playing good so you can’t really go wrong, but it makes the decision really tough,’’ he said. “It’s going to be hard to tell some guys they’re not on the team. There are going to be some guys that should be on the team that aren’t going to be on it. That’s the tough part.’’
