Why Lucas Glover's success has resonated

Brian Harman was fired up.

After the opening round of last week’s BMW Championship, Harman was asked about Lucas Glover’s torrid summer stretch, winning back-to-back events in early August to first qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs and then for the TOUR Championship.

The Open champion launched into an impassioned defense of Glover and his career like a lawyer taking the stand in defense of a chastised client.

“I read an article the other day that made me very angry,” Harman began. “It called Lucas Glover a journeyman. It said, ‘journeyman Lucas Glover,’ and I thought, what a ridiculous thing to say. This guy … won the U.S. Open. He's won six or seven times now. Lucas Glover is a world beater.”

Harman wasn’t alone in his support for Glover, long known as one of the game’s premier ball-strikers, as many around the game rallied around the veteran pro of 515 PGA TOUR starts. CBS analyst Trevor Immelman said during the Wyndham Championship that Glover “hasn’t missed the center of the clubface since he was 12 or 13,” and although that might be hyperbole, the point is taken. In straw polls of TOUR pros, Glover’s sound off the clubface is often noted as one of the game’s purest, a sound that makes you stop and savor the acoustic. Glover was an acclaimed junior and amateur player, has represented the United States on two Presidents Cup teams and won the 2009 U.S. Open.

The game’s newer observers might not realize this, as Glover’s results had spiraled in recent years after self-admitted putting yips. Glover, 43, has seen a career renaissance after a change to the long putter – separating his hands proved key in conquering his demons – and he followed a victory at the Wyndham Championship (just to earn a Playoffs spot) with a win at the Playoffs-opening FedEx St. Jude Championship cementing his fifth TOUR Championship appearance.

Glover is happy of course, but his fellow pros might be even happier. Why? We canvassed the Playoffs to find out, and three themes emerged.

One, his game is deserving. Glover has long been regarded as one of the game’s preeminent flushers. Rory McIlroy referenced a Data Golf stat he had come across recently – “I think he’s like the ninth best ball-striker in the ShotLink era from like 2004” – after competing alongside Glover in the opening round at Olympia Fields. It might not be Tiger Woods circa 2000 or Scottie Scheffler circa 2023, but it’s a sterling statistical season.

Glover has spent 20 consecutive full seasons on the PGA TOUR, a testament to longevity in a sport where season-altering injuries have become more common in the chase for speed and distance. The game’s athletic demands have expanded in a bomb-and-gouge era. Glover’s skills and body have stood the test of time.

“We know he’s got the tools from tee to green,” McIlroy said. “It was just a matter of him trying to figure out how to get the ball in the hole, and using this long putter, he's certainly started to figure it out.”

“You never want to see a guy struggle like he has, especially a guy with as much talent as he has,” said Harris English. “We know how talented he is, and how hard he works … his hard work and effort were never in question. You know how good he is, and the sky’s the limit.”

Two, Glover has been open with his struggles, the right-hander admitting that he had considered putting left-handed as recently as this spring. He remembers the first time he contracted the yips – a three-putt from 2 feet on the fourth hole during the second round of the 2014 Charles Schwab Challenge, and he couldn’t shake the malady until this summer when he made a change to the long putter before the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “It shows he was kind of at the end of his journey,” said English, a longtime Glover mentee. “For a while, you don’t want to think about it or you don’t want to admit to yourself that you have an issue … because we’re all athletes, we’re so competitive, we don’t want to admit that we have flaws.”

“He's had a handful of years where he struggled with the flat stick and shorter putts, and that's always been tough. That's not something you want to see … you feel for guys when they're going through that,” added Rickie Fowler. “I don't think you're going to find anyone that has pulled against him, seeing that he's kind of resurrected his game and probably self-belief on the greens. I’ve enjoyed watching it.”

Three, he treats people well. Glover has long taken younger pros under his wing, always happy to share a practice round or advice. Glover settled in St. Simons Island, Georgia, in the late 2000s – Harman, English and Chris Kirk are among the younger pros who benefited from Glover’s tutelage in coastal Georgia. Each beamed speaking about Glover.

“It brings a smile to my face just talking about it, because I know how hard he’s worked,” said Kirk, who counts Glover and Davis Love III as his two central mentors on TOUR. “Somebody that's played on TOUR and won as many times as he has, he didn't have to keep fighting and didn't have to keep grinding it out and working at it, but he did.

“He and Davis were kind of the two guys that I went to for advice about anything … definitely the most influential and the people that I could trust and knew were there for me.”

“Always polite, always jovial,” added Glover’s caddie Tommy Lamb. After the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Glover was approached with a DUDE Wipes endorsement, playing off his victory in muggy Memphis. He was unable to accept but encouraged Lamb to take the endorsement, which he did.

“On the dog days of Tuesday and Wednesday and all that, (he) always seems to be in a good jovial mood. I don’t ever catch him down or upset; he’s always one to initiate a conversation or say hello. I think he’s done that across the board with guys that are his contemporaries or even some of the rookies. It seems like he’s gone out of his way to play practice rounds with them.”

“You’re not going to find one person on TOUR that has a bad thing to say about Lucas,” added McIlroy.

All three elements coalesced for Harman in his response after the BMW’s opening round. This year’s Open champion said that he has strived to be better at congratulating his friends on TOUR for their successes after seeing support for his triumph at Royal Liverpool. Even still, his praise for Glover sent shockwaves across the golf world for its authentic fierceness. All of Harman’s trademark grit on the course was wound up into the response, which even referenced the mid-1990s film “The Shawshank Redemption.”

“To go through what he went through with his putter and to come out the other side, I think about like Andy Dufresne, calling through the river and coming out clean the other side,” Harman said. “I'm so proud of him, I'm so happy for him. Gosh, my wife and I were watching him win Wyndham and both of us are in tears watching it, and to follow it back up the next week, it's awesome.”

Redemption, and then some.

“That meant a lot,” Glover said this week. “I don’t know what spurred it on or where it came from, but I texted (Harman) right after and just said, ‘Thank you, I appreciate that, those were very kind words.’

“That was over-the-top cool of him.”