Davis Milton Love III(born April 13, 1964) is perhaps best known in golf as a Ryder Cup Captain and PGA Championship winner. Love was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017. Like many in the latter decades of the 20th century, he saw the rise of a lucrative side-line for many prominent professional golfers: that of “signature” architect attached to a course. The trend wasn't limited just to the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, either.
Not all signature architects have been equally engaged with their projects. One of the most hands-on is Davis Love III, whose name has been attached to more than two dozen golf courses, including a healthy mix of new builds and renovations since his 1990 collaboration with Steve Melnyk at Oak Hills Golf Club in Columbia, South Carolina.
In 1994, Love founded Love Golf Design, a golf course architecture company, with his younger brother and caddie, Mark Love. From then and through the 2000s the company has been responsible for the design of several courses throughout the southeast United States. Completed in 1997, Ocean Creek was his first signature course and is located on Fripp Island, South Carolina. Love also designed the Dunes course at Diamante in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, which is ranked among Golf Magazine's Top 100 courses in the world.
