Bags were packed at the Love household for a big ski trip to celebrate the end of the year. But a last-minute call changed the entire itinerary. A spot has opened for Davis Love III and his son Dru Love at the PNC Championship. A chance to make a comeback after 8 big years! As the father-son duo nodded in agreement to the invitation, they had only one person to thank: Tiger Woods.

“You know, we got to thank Tiger Woods for a lot of stuff,” Love III says on Saturday at the post-round presser. “Hate that he’s hurt, but we slipped in here because a couple [of] guys that were stars of the show last few years [are not] here.”

The “star of the show” was indeed Woods. Recovering from his seventh back surgery, the Big Cat decided to opt out of the event where he’s been a fixture with his son, Charlie, since 2021. That year was special. Woods was making his first appearance in a competitive event since his near-fatal car accident.

As expected, people crazily tuned in to watch the 15-time major winner tee it off. The 2021 PNC Championship drew 2.3 million viewers, a massive 53% increase from last year. Golf.com called it “one of golf’s must-watch events.”

As a result, the Woods have become the event’s biggest draw. They haven’t won a title yet, but Charlie’s hole-in-one, and their play-off against the Langers last year — something not done in a decade — have elevated the tournament to a major watch.

But now, with Woods’s absence, the limited 20-team field naturally created space for other eligible pairs, like the Loves.

This was an unexpected opportunity.

“A lot of fun to be back…” Davis Love III shares. “There was a year or two that Dru, within the rules, was not eligible to play…It’s nice that a couple of spots opened up for me.”

The Loves, also a fixture at the event, had eventually become ineligible to participate. The reason? Dru’s pursuit of a pro status.

Since their last win, Junior Love sporadically tried to earn a card, be it anywhere. From the PGA to the DP World Tour, he tried everywhere. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it, but his attempts went on, which inevitably closed the door to the Bahamas event. You see, a prime requirement for the PNC is that only one of the golfers can be a pro.

At the same time, health setbacks clouded Love III’s participation. In 2025, he had to undergo an open-heart surgery to repair a leaky heart valve, something that had been diagnosed for a decade. The surgery caused his ribs to fracture, and Love III’s entire 2025 went into recovery. Before this, he had other minor surgeries on his thumb, which made holding a club difficult.

Hence, coming back to the event looked almost impossible. But things have a weird way of turning out, and sometimes. Ironically, it was a surgery, albeit Woods’s, that gave the Loves a once-lost path to the PNC Championship.

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The ‘Love’-ly legacy of the father-son duo

For a stretch, Davis Love III and son Dru were the team at the PNC Championship, owning the place as and when they showed up. Having won twice, once in 2012 and the other in 2018, the Loves were in rare company.

2018 is a year that people would arguably remember the most. Recording the lowest single round (16-under par 56) in the history of the tournament, the duo were an absolute tear. They made only four pars in the entire round, an aggressive display of the club and balls.

When they finished the tournament,  Davis and Dru Love stood at 26-under par 118, breaking the previous year’s scramble record in the process. The PNC Championship’s attribution from a recreational event soon shifted to cut-throat with the Loves’s competitve intensity.

What’s remarkable is the individual journeys both were embarking on at the time. Before their 2018 win, Dru’s last contention was at the RSM Classic, just a month before. His result was a T54, interestingly, ahead of his own father. The fact that the two were rampaging the PNC Championship, while competing in other professional events, is part of a unique narrative still thought about.