Most nine-year-old boys in America dream of growing up to be professional sports heroes. Davis Love III was no exception.

But while fame and glory are usually the impetus behind such dreams, Love wanted to be a professional golfer because he loved the game. He simply didn’t want to do anything else.

Today, Love still lives for the game. True, the stakes are a little higher. At 24, Love has a wife and a baby on the way. But the child-like obsession burns brighter than ever. And although most know Love as one of the PGA Tour’s longest hitters, many more will soon discover the big picture. Davis Love III has arrived as a bona fide young lion on the professional golf circuit.

Sure, his distance off the tee is already legendary. Last year, his second full season on Tour, Love finished first in driving distance with a staggering 285.7 average. But his win at the 1987 MCI Heritage Classic opened many an eye. Love not only won at Harbour Town, he came within one shot of the tournament record of 14-under par 270. More importantly, he proved that his game was solid all around.

This rise to stardom is a natural progression for Love. He began to play golf shortly after learning to walk. As a child, Love followed his father, Davis Love, Jr., around on the PGA Tour. The elder Love, of course, went on to become one of the most respected teacher/tacticians in the game. Growing up in such a golf rich environment, Love’s potential was overshadowed only by the pressure to perform on an exemplary level. After a relatively unsuccessful junior career, Love and his father began work on a swing that would last. One that would produce results.

In time, the work paid off. Love enjoyed a glorious collegiate career at the University of North Carolina, earning All America honors three consecutive years and winning the 1984 Atlantic Coast Conference championship and the prestigious North/South Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2. A Walker Cup team member in 1985, Love qualified for the PGA Tour in the fall of that year and won more than $100,000 in his first full campaign. In addition to his win at Harbour Town last year, he also finished second at Colonial and made nearly $300,000 for the year, good for 33rd on the final money list.

Love’s character and his respect for the game was perhaps best evidenced at this year’s Players Championship at Sawgrass. In Friday’s second round Love was two-under par when he noticed that his putter was bent, an infraction under the Tour’s rules on altering equipment. Although no one, including playing partners Jack Nicklaus and Payne Stewart, caught the gaffe, Love promptly called the officials. He was subsequently disqualified, perhaps costing him a hefty paycheck.

Just a few days after the TPC incident, we had the opportunity to sit down with Love at his Sea Island home. Rather than being disheartened over the affair, as many younger players might have been, Love was in good spirits and already hard at work preparing for his first Masters appearance. And although he would miss the cut at Augusta by just one shot, the consensus is strong that Love will be around for many more shots at that, and other, coveted prizes on the PGA Tour.

There wasn’t really any pressure from my family, or any self-imposed pressure. When I was first playing in junior tournaments, everyone thought I should play well because my dad was a pro. So there was pressure from other players. The feeling was that if I played well, it was because of my dad. If I didn’t play well, I should have because of my dad. It was kid stuff. But my dad only wanted us to play if we wanted to and if we enjoyed playing. If we wanted to play hockey or soccer or anything else, he would let us do that, too. He was very good for us. He knew how to get us started without forcing anything on us.

Does winning a tournament like the Heritage ease the pressure on a young professional, or does it increase the pressure to keep that momentum going?

I think it does both. It gets rid of a lot of the pressure, but I put a lot of pressure on myself to win. I got in the position to win a few times and let it get away. I felt like I had to win, and I let that get in the way of simply playing golf.

When I did win, I was just trying to play the golf course and finish in a position to win. But there’s also pressure if you try to hold that streak and play well the next week. When you get in that position, it’s easy to begin worrying about whether or not you can keep it going. So winning really does both. It relieved me for awhile, and I played well for awhile. Now I’m back to putting pressure on myself to win instead of just playing.

I see it just the opposite. I see the younger guys being less satisfied with just playing average golf. They’re out there working hard, and the guys who haven’t won are working even harder. I see some of the older guys coming out there and playing until they make a certain amount of money. They play a certain amount of tournaments where they know they can make $200,000 or $300,000 and then they lose that desire to play every week. If you say that the young guys don’t have the will to win, then why are they playing so many golf tournaments? Guys like Mike Hulbert and Joey Sindelar and Bob Tway are playing just about every week. If all they wanted to do was make a little money, they would just play in a few tournaments and get their cash and go do something else. These guys don’t have anything else that they want to do except play golf. They enjoy playing. The money is just an added bonus.

Well, I think the big thing especially for someone my age, is the outings and the pro-ams that you get into on Mondays and Tuesdays. There’s so much money there, and it’s hard to convince yourself that that Monday is going to hurt you for the tournament. People want me to play in this pro-am or that pro-am, and they’re getting so popular that you could play in every one and still play in every golf tournament and really get worn out.

As for endorsements, they ease my mind. I don’t have to worry about my bills not being paid. I can pay for my expenses for the year just off the extra stuff. Then you don’t have to worry about cashing a check. You don’t have to worry about shooting 68 on a particular day so you can make your mortgage payment or your car payment.

I think the money thing is blown out of proportion. Fifteen years ago, they weren’t making anything out there. Today, it’s grown so much. But still, if you look at what we’re making compared to some of the football players or basketball players, it’s not that much. Take the top ten basketball players and top ten golfers, and you’ll see that the basketball players are making a heck of a lot more money. And we’re not guaranteed anything. Curtis Strange made $1 million last year, but he’s not guaranteed anything this year. (Michael) Jordan is making the same thing for four or five years. It’s a different life out there. We don’t have the luxury of long-term contracts like you see in other professional sports. So we have to do those extra things just to keep up.

Without giving anything away, how do you hit the ball so far?

It’s really just natural. I’ve got a big swing arc that I developed when I was little. My dad always told us that we could hit it as far as we want and as hard as we want as long as we kept our balance. I developed a big wide swing because of that. I figured out a way to keep my feet on the ground and really bash it. That’s the way Nicklaus was brought up. He was taught to go ahead and swing at it and worry about straightening it out when he grew up. I’m not strong or muscular. I just have a big swing. The farther the club head travels, the more speed it picks up. That’s all there is. There’s no secret. If there was, I’d have a video out and be making tons of money.

How do younger players handle a situation like what happened to you at the TPC?

There’s where you get back to the money. If the money becomes the most important thing, you lose the whole joy of playing golf. We’re getting away from the Bobby Jones-type ‘gentleman’s’ golf, and I think the money is the reason. It becomes crucial when this putt is worth $40,000 or whether or not you won $600,000 last year. You lose the joy of playing golf and simply trying to do your best.

I grew up having to learn the rules just to go play. My dad was really big on teaching us the history of the game and why golf is such a great game. I feel that when something happens on the golf course, if you don’t call it on yourself, no one else is going to call it on you. If we start thinking too much about the money, some of those things won’t get called. If I stood there and thought about that call meaning $100,000 to me, I’d tap the putt in, go play the next hole and bend my putter when I was finished. It’s the integrity of the game. If a basketball player is dribbling down the side of the court and sees his foot step on the out-of-bounds line, he’s not going to stop and tell someone that he did it.

I knew the rule. I didn’t know my putter was bent, and I didn’t know how or where it bent. I knew that it didn’t come from hitting a shot. So I called the official.

I would say that 99.5 percent of the players out there would call it. That’s the way they were brought up. If you play golf a lot, sooner or later you’re going to play with somebody that does the same things. It’s happened many times. Guys call things on themselves all the time. I don’t think there are many bad guys out there. You won’t survive out there if you’re not well liked or if you don’t get along with people. There are incidents where players call something on other players, but it’s very rare. It’s not life or death out there. I think these guys feel better when they call something like that on themselves.