Butterfield Bermuda Championship reunites old friends Lucas Glover, Michael Sims

Lucas Glover is resurgent, one of the best turnaround stories on the PGA TOUR.

Michael Sims is a life coach, no longer playing competitively.

And yet the longtime friends, who first met at a junior tournament in Dothan, Alabama, will be reunited at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.

“We went in different directions,” Sims, a native Bermudian, said Wednesday.

“Fair, fair,” said Glover.

They were 13 at that first meeting, Glover a giant to the later-developing Sims. They kept in touch in college (Clemson for Glover; Rhode Island for Sims); barnstormed together in their 20s; and are easing into their mid-40s (Glover will turn 44 on Sunday, Sims is already there).

True, only one of them made it, but as close as they are, as much support as they gave each other along the way, both take some modicum of pride in the accomplishment.

And besides, with a bond as real as theirs, trophies and TV exposure are just ancillary things.

“We would get paired in tournaments and then regionals, occasionally,” Glover said, “and we'd see each other in the summers after school playing in the amateur tournaments. Just started hanging out. Got real close after college. We started traveling together doing the Monday qualifiers trying to get either on the Korn Ferry Tour or on the TOUR.”

Once, after both had flamed out at a Monday qualifier, they figured they could at least take solace in going out for beers. Then they remembered they were in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“We were devastated,” Glover said, the two of them chuckling at the memory.

Sims’ professional highlights were mostly of the obscure variety. He tied for third at the 2007 Club Colombia Masters and played some on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Glover, though, found his way on the PGA TOUR and won the 2009 U.S. Open. A putting slump soon followed, but he broke out with back-to-back victories at the Wyndham Championship and FedEx St. Jude Championship in August.

Sims was with him for all of it, even if not literally.

Glover, who is now in every Signature Event for 2024, said the support was impactful.

“Coming here after the success,” he said, “it's even more special because I know how much Michael helped me and how much he's just stayed positive, stayed real with me.”

Added Sims, who hopes to make his first PGA TOUR cut in this, his fifth start in Bermuda (but first as a sponsor exemption): “It's very inspirational to see what he's been through. I was crying when he won the first time and then I was yelling at the screen the second time.”

Port Royal is where they come together again in more than just spirit. Sims always has Glover over to his parents’ house during tournament week, and they also go to Grannie’s to get fish sandwiches.

Both were on the agenda this week.

“Well, everybody always gets a little scared when I say this, but I always go raisin bread,” Sims said of his go-to at Grannie’s. “They go, raisin bread? Raisin bread for me. It's raisin bread, coleslaw, hot sauce, sometimes it's cheese, sometimes it's not, let's go.”

Said Glover, “I get what he gets and I've never been let down.”

You could slip a lot of sandwich filling in between their spots in the Official World Golf Ranking. Glover is 31st (up from 166th in June) while Sims is No. 4,084, but they don’t see each other that way. Oftentimes, they don’t talk about golf at all, even though Sims has caddied for Glover a time or two. They laughed Wednesday about teaming up for a practice-round match earlier this week and having to buy dinner for their opponents.

Sure, the expense hurt one guy less than the other, but they made light of this, too, because such is golf. The ball will go where it goes. Their friendship, rock solid, isn’t going anywhere.