Here’s something you may not have known but Jamie Lovemark played in the same 2007 winning USA Walker Cup winning team as Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Billy Horschell.
Among those in the opposing GB & I team they beat that year was the likes of Rory McIlroy and Danny Willett.
But while all five have really gone on to make their presence felt on golf’s world stage, the now 27-year old California-born Lovemark, due to injury, has not been able to join his Walker Cup winning colleagues on centre stage.
He knows how to win having captured the 2010 Mexico Open and the 2013 Midwest Classic on the secondary Web.com Tour.
And under the continuing guidance of Chris Como, and swing consultant to Tiger Woods, Lovemark is continuing to make a strong New Year impression at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.
Jamie Lovemark after his second straight score of 68.
In fact, Lovemark is riding high in 36th place on the FedEx Cup standings and all thanks to three top-10s this year in succession – 9th RSM Classic, 7th Sony Open and 6th at the Career Builder Challenge.
Lovemark, and also a former Palmer Cup winner, posted a second straight four under par 68 to move to eight under par at the halfway stage of the final event on this year’s ‘Florida Swing’.
His second round was highlighted in being five under par for his round through 15 holes and with his only bogey being at the 16th.
It’s also a far cry from his prior two Arnold Palmer Invitational rounds of 75 and 79 to miss the cut in the 2010 tournament.
“Scoring is very doable especially the par-5s,” he said.
“I have had to a lot of scrambling around the greens but then thanks to Chris, we have worked hard on my game and I am swinging it a lot better than I have the last three to four years. So it’s much more consistent.
“But it’s great to be playing in this tournament again but this week is looks like all about trying to catch Jason Day is going to be some task, the best in the world. Playing great. It will be a tough week to catch him.”
Lovemark played five events on the PGA Tour soon after turning pro in summer 2009 and then strangely found himself in a play-off with Fowler along with Troy Matheson later that year at the Frys.com Open, and with Matheson winning the title.
That same year Lovemark also played in 22 Web.com Tour events and at age 22 became the youngest player in the Tour’s history to win the No. 1 title.
Lovemark underwent back surgery in 2011 and in the next few years split his time between the Web.com Tour and the main Tour, and at the end of 2013 regained his full PGA Tour card for the 2014 season. However he finished the year well down with a best finish of T12 in the Canadian Open.
Last year, Lovemark again competed on the Web.com Tour and certainly impressed playing 22 events with second place results and seven other top-10s to regain his PGA Tour playing card. And a highlight of 2015 was his T18th finish in the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.
And when taken back to 2010 when he played in the tournament last, Lovemark commented: “That was forever ago. It’s crazy. Time goes by so fast. It’s nuts. 2010 was a par 70. One of the hardest courses I’ve ever played. The rough was up. 16 and 4 were par 4s and just extremely tough golf course. Little different this year. The course is literally perfect so making putts, and around the greens is pretty easy.”
