Davis Love III’s Favorite Golf Gambling Story: No-Bogey Betting at The Open Championship

Davis Love III’s Favorite Golf Gambling Story: No-Bogey Betting at The Open Championship article feature image
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John David Mercer, USA Today Sports. Pictured: Davis Love III

The Action Network spoke with several of golf's biggest legends find out their favorite personal golf betting stories. In a previous series, we spoke with several of today's biggest stars about their favorite betting stories. You can find those here.

  • Who: Davis Love III
  • When: 1994 Open Championship practice round
  • Where: Turnberry, Scotland

During major championship practice rounds, Love and his fellow pros would play $1,000 no-bogey rounds, which are exactly what they sound like – if any player made it through 18 holes without a blemish on his scorecard, the other three would have to pay him a grand each. Love recalls one time when that almost happened, until he and a few others rattled their buddy into a bogey.

“That was our favorite thing to do – that $1,000 no-bogey game.

“Ben Crenshaw got us one time and we had to pay him. I think that was the only time anyone won.

“One time at Turnberry, Brad Faxon really has it going. He hadn’t made a bogey through 14 holes.

“Then we started picking on him. We just started reminding him about the bet.

“We frustrated him so much that on 15, the par-3, he missed the green. We were saying, ‘That wind is blowing hard left to right, you’d hate to hit it over there to the right, down that slope.’ And he did it. He was just furious at us, but he got up there and knocked it to 10 feet or so and made it.

“He had it going until 17, then he wound up making a bogey.

“But he was so mad at us for picking on him. We’d never seen Brad get mad.”

Other golf gambling stories from legends of the game

About the Author
Jason is a Senior Golf Writer for The Action Network. He has covered golf full-time since 2004, previously for ESPN and Golf Channel, winning more than a dozen accolades from the Golf Writers Association of America and four Sports Emmys.

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