Davis Love is excited to play host to some of the US PGA's top players when the $4 million McGladrey Classic opens Thursday, but he cannot get the US Ryder Cup loss to Europe off his mind.
Love was the American captain who saw Europe stage the greatest last-day victory fightback on opposing soil in Ryder Cup history to retain the trophy with a 14 1/2-13 1/2 triumph last month.
"I'm still not sleeping well. I still think about things," Love said Wednesday. "We didn't win. So I accept that."
Love ranks 104th on the season money list entering the penultimate event of the campaign, which concludes after next month's event at Disney World. He hopes for a 27th consecutive spot in the top 100 on the PGA money list.
"Playing some good golf but not getting great results," Love said. "But I'm happy to be staying competitive."
Love admits he has played out small choices in his mind that he thinks might have made the difference in an American victory or defeat at the Ryder Cup in Medinah.
"We've been playing that game like everybody else," Love said. "You sit there and go, 'If I had just put the pin left on 17 on Sunday rather than right, would that have made a difference?'
"And the order of play and the pairings and all that, you can go over and over and over. So you keep going back and forth on all the arguments.
"What I've come down to is we really may have dropped the ball on pin placements on the last few holes. We wanted pins on the left and in the middle of the green because a lot of our guys were drawing it in there.
"If I could do something over again, it would be more getting guys thinking about how to play singles and maybe the pins needed to be easier or harder."
Among the entrants this week is Swedish rookie Jonas Blixt, who comes off his first PGA title last week in California after only 19 events.
"I have pretty good confidence in my game right now and the things I've been doing after the win are taking a lot of energy so I will see what my body does and how I respond to it," Blixt said.
"I'd like to kind of sneak under the radar a little bit. I enjoy being by myself and practicing a little bit and stuff like that. I'm not really used to having a camera in my face as much as I've been having the last few days."
Blixt ranks 35th on the money list at just under $2.2 million. To reach his target of a top-30 money showing for the season, and the special invitations it brings, he will need to catch American Ben Curtis, the defedning McGladrey champion on $2.46 million.
"I'm trying to get into the Top 30," Blixt said. "It's not going to be the easiest thing but whenever you got a chance, you've got to try to take it."
Also in the field is Australian Jason Day, who enjoyed his best finish of his injury-nagged season two weeks ago when he was fourth at Las Vegas.
"This year has been very tough," Day said. "Over the past couple of months I've been able to actually get back to practicing, get back to the normal way I prepare for an event."
Day, who shared second at last year's Masters and US Open, ranks 80th on the money list this season.
