Davis Love's one and only major victory in 1997 was a dedication. With a lead a less talented player would have found hard to squander, Love's thoughts turned to his father who had been killed some years earlier in a plane crash. Davis snr had taught him, encouraged him and inspired him, and now fulfilment was at hand.

As the rain cleared and the sun broke through, Love's overdue triumph was framed by a perfectly-formed rainbow. Not even the cynics at the back of the media centre could deny the poignancy and the power of the image. An emotional Love holed the putt to win the USPGA Championship and raised his eyes to the sky.

"People are still saying, 'Davis Love's dad taught him how to play, and he was a great teacher', " Love said recently. "So, I think that story carries on. They say, 'What's the best thing about winning the PGA Championship?' It's carried my dad's memory on."

Tiger Woods's return to competitive action at Winged Foot on Thursday week will mark the end of the longest lay-off of his career. Even though there was some anticipation that he would make his comeback at this week's Memorial Tournament following his father's death early last month, Woods won't have played since the Masters . . . a 10-week break . . .when he tees it up at the US Open.

If Davis Love II nudged the door open for his son, Earl Woods took it off the hinges for Tiger. He didn't just groom the boy to be a successful professional, he groomed him to be the best player in the world. Some of Earl's predictions that Tiger would have more global influence than Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela put together were nothing more than misguided ramblings, but not alone is his son now the best player, he has an opportunity to surpass Jack Nicklaus and to become the greatest in history.

When Woods tearfully paid tribute to his ailing father during his victory speech at last year's Masters, it was evidence, if any evidence was needed, of the strong bond between the two men. "I don't ever play a round of golf where I don't think of something my dad told me, " Love has explained. "Tiger is going to do that every day for a long time, and for a while they're not going to be happy memories, but it's all going to be part of his game."

For Woods, the inveterate setter of goals, the raiser of bars, this US Open will be the first time he has played a major championship without his dad watching. So the aim will be to win at Winged Foot on Father's Day for Earl. As for Love, he is still coming to terms with the fact that when the rainbow appeared nine years ago, the major champion vanished.

With his talent and his enviable power, it was presumed after Love's breakthrough major victory that he would be the one to rattle Woods's cage. Instead, it was Duval who stepped forward, and when he unexpectedly withered, it was Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen who challenged. In fact, after Winged Foot in 1997, Love didn't win for another three years.

Too consumed by his family, and by hunting, fishing and motorbikes. He was there or thereabouts so often, permanently in the world's top 20, and a Ryder Cup fixture, that it was all too easy to forget how high he could have jumped. Besides, Davis Love has always been one of the PGA Tour's good guys, someone who was approachable and considerate, someone who made it his business to learn the name of every cameraman who works inside the ropes on the tour.

In 2003, he came out of his shell and won four times, but the drought has returned.

Defeated in the final of this season's WGC Match Play Championship by Geoff Oglivy, his total of secondplace finishes rose to 29 . . . all is forgiven Padraig Harrington . . . and of his nine play-offs, he has lost seven.

"You get nervous, and there's no getting around it, " he once explained after losing in Los Angeles. "The point is, a lot of guys come apart down the stretch. I was intimidated by the chance to win, I got out of my rhythm because I had my chance."

Back in 1988, Love was one of America's emerging players, already with a tour victory, just as his father was one of the country's most respected coaches. Before he left home in Georgia for a tournament in Hawaii, Davis's father had spoken to him about how he was worried that he might not have been getting as much out of him as he should, and if he possibly should be working with another coach. Davis simply put it down to his dad's typical thoughtfulness, and he didn't think too much about what would turn out to be their last conversation.

A couple of days later, the small private plane Love snr was travelling in crashed into a forest just a mile from the airport at Jacksonville, Florida. Not knowing if his father had survived, Love had to wait until he was changing planes in San Francisco before he learned the devastating news. "It was six hours of the worst torture I could ever imagine, " he later said. "I suppose when you win a major, you get asked every week how it feels to win a major. That's fun. Being asked about my father's death every week wasn't."

He recovered, won tournaments, and then delivered on his promise at Winged Foot where he shot a 71 and three 66s on one of the most demanding courses in America, where he left Justin Leonard trailing by five strokes, and where that rainbow described an arc over the finale.

"I see a lot of things in Tiger that my dad gave me. A lot of confidence, " Love said recently. "Earl wanted to instill that in Tiger, that he could be the best and that he had to give it his all because he had the potential to do great things.

He made Tiger believe and I think that's the sign of a great motivator and a great teacher.

"Obviously, Tiger's going to be in the same boat as me every time he goes out to play golf. He'll think of his father and that's not going to change. It's going to be hard for a while, but it'll be a positive down the road."

Woods might have been better to have played at the Memorial and to have cleared the air with all the questions regarding his father who died of cancer on 3 May. Now, the interrogation will take place during US Open week, but then, the world number one will be prepared.

As for the possibility of another rainbow over Winged Foot? Love probably won't mind if it appears for Woods this time.