Rickie Fowler isn’t old, but he’s old enough to recall the days before the PGA Tour’s wrap-around season began in the autumn of 2013. At first, there were mixed reviews.

The 34-year-old remembers a funny but frustrating moment two years into the experiment, in the early portion of the 2015-16 schedule.

“I think I went over and played [WGC-HSBC] China in November and finished third and by the time we started up on the West Coast [in January] I think I was like 68th on FedEx points,” Fowler told Golf Digest at the Tour Championship.

The problem with the wrap-around was that top players like Fowler — who had won the Players and the Deutsche Bank FedEx Cup playoff event in 2015 but earned no points for the new season — were punished in the standings for taking time off the in the autumn.

It’s safe to say that the top 30 players who made it to East Lake this year are welcoming the changes to the schedule that better incorporates an off-season. Starting at the Fortinet Championship next month in in Napa, California, the PGA Tour will stage a seven-event Fall Series. FedEx Cup points will be issued but not counted toward 2024 like they would have in the past. Instead, the points will be used to determine two things: the 10 players not previously eligible, who earn exemptions into the two signature events in 2024 after January’s Sentry event in Maui; and the top 125 category who get into regular PGA Tour events for those who finished outside the top 70 in the 2022-23 FedEx Cup standings. A Fall Series win comes with a two-year PGA Tour exemption, 500 FedEx Cup points, entry into the Sentry, Players Championship and majors.

For the top players, it means it’s possible to take time off from September to November, depending on a player’s eligibility for the Ryder Cup and various sponsor commitments.

“It’ll be nice to be able to pick and choose how much you want to play [in the autumn] and not necessarily have that count against you at the start the year,” said Fowler, who was at East Lake and now eligible for all the big events next year.

However, Fowler, whose drought-breaking sixth PGA Tour victory came at the Rocket Mortgage Championship this summer, will still play a handful of times the rest of this year, saying he thinks a lot of players won’t want to skip the autumn schedule.

“Yeah, it’ll be a combination,” Fowler said. “Sometimes you don’t want to go too long without playing competitive golf. I’m planning on playing the Zozo Championship [in Japan mid-October], the Hero [the early December event hosted by Tiger Woods in the Bahamas] and Grant Thornton [another unofficial tournament in Florida in mid-December].

Lucas Glover. Andy Lyons

Another top player who intends on teeing it up a couple times in the autumn is Lucas Glover, one of the hottest golfers at the end of the 2022-23 season. The former US Open champion won back-to-back starts in the regular-season finale, the Wyndham Championship, and the FedEx St Jude Championship, the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

“My schedule really depends on the Ryder Cup,” said Glover, who at 16th in US team standings was waiting to find out if he was receiving one of Zach Johnson’s captain’s picks, which will be revealed today. “I’ve played some pretty good golf lately, but we’ll see if it’s enough. I want to be there, badly, but if not, I’ll understand.

“I’ll play Sanderson Farms because I love that event and the community gets behind it,” Glover said. “And also Bermuda because one of my good buddies, Michael Sims, is [a tour pro] from Bermuda and he normally plays in that event.” (Sims has qualified for the event every year since its inception in 2019.)

England’s Matt Fitzpatrick is among the European Ryder Cup team members who play on both the PGA and DP World tours. After the Tour Championship, the 2022 US Open champion will tee it up in the BMW Championship at Wentworth, then the Ryder Cup in Rome, followed by the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland. He’ll close out the year with the Hero in the Bahamas.

“I personally want everything to be done by September, or the middle of September, and have a proper offseason,” he said. “People then miss the game and want to tune in [come January].”

Some players, though, don’t intend on playing much of anything.

“I think maybe one, but I’m not sure,” said 13-time PGA Tour winner Jason Day, whose wife Ellie is due with their fifth child in September. “I’ll have some time at home with our new baby, and I’d like to take at least two months off. 2016 was last time I took even one month off. I’m going to work more on my body for 2024.”

Sam Burns, who was also waiting on a potential Ryder Cup wildcard, wants to put the clubs down for a while.

“Probably not,” Burns said when asked if he’d play in the autumn. “I don’t have any plans to, currently. But everything’s kind of up in the air, still. I will take a pretty long break and then ease my way back into it. Totally reset. Guys want to get their bodies healthy and just take a break mentally. I think it’d be really good for a lot of guys.”

So, what will players who made the Tour Championship do with their weeks off?

“Hopefully, we’ll get to take at least one trip down to our house in the Dominican at Playa Grande. That would be a nice little vacation,” Fowler said.

Glover, 43, will also log some quality family time with his wife and two children.

“Good question,” he said. “We used to have six weeks off between [Tour Championship] and Kapalua. I’ll definitely watch some football games.”

Burns, who lives in Choudrant, Louisiana, said that he intends to go hunting.

No matter the player, or the autumn workload, one goal they all had was around recharging.

“These last couple of months I’ve been beat from the year and how much we’ve been on the road,” Fowler said. “Had a stretch starting at the PGA Championship through the Open Championship … it was 10 weeks and I was home for eight days. I’m ready to relax a little bit, get recharged and ready for the next year.”

The post The PGA Tour season is over. Now what? Top players explain how they intend to navigate the new autumn series appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The putting woes Lucas Glover endured for a decade have been well documented by now — and well, they should be given just how beautifully he’s played over the last two months highlighted by his back-to-back victories the last two weeks. Open champion Brian Harman was able to put a more compelling — and colourful—spin on Glover’s resurgence by paraphrasing a line from the 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, crawling through the river and coming out clean the other side,” Harman said on Thursday at the BMW Championship where he shot 65 and grabbed a share of the first-round lead with Rory McIlroy. “I’m so proud of him. I’m so happy for him. Gosh, my wife and I were watching him win Wyndham [Championship, two weeks ago] and both of us are in tears watching it, and to follow it back up the next week, it’s awesome.”

“I think all of us … we all struggle from time to time, and Lucas with the putter, he struggled. It’s like … he was talking about putting left-handed,” added Harman, who plays left-handed. “I remember when I first moved down to St Simons [in Georgia], we’d go out and we’d play golf, and it was long before I had a tour card, and I was like: ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to beat this guy.’ He was so good. He’s got such good hands. He was putting it so great. So he goes through that, and like I said, to come out the other side is just unreal.”

Everyone needs a friend like this

Co-leader @HarmanBrian talks about seeing @Lucas_Glover_ overcome his struggles. pic.twitter.com/dFxQkRKObV

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 17, 2023

Harman, who opened with a five-under 65 on the North Course at Olympia Fields, also had some choice words for an unnamed writer who in a recent story referred to Glover — who hit an even-par 70 for a share of 23rd on Thursday — as a “journeyman”. This was a different river, of, well, we’ll let him just say his piece.

“I read an article the other day that made me very angry. It called Lucas Glover a journeyman. It said, ‘journeyman Lucas Glover’, and I thought, what a ridiculous thing to say,” Harman said. “This guy has made I don’t know how many Tour Championships, won the US Open. He’s won six or seven times now. Lucas Glover is a world beater.”

He sure has been lately. Harman, the Champion Golfer of the Year, hasn’t been too bad, either.

The post Brian Harman shares perfect Shawshank analogy about Lucas Glover, admits tears while watching him win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The 18-inch putt he missed to lose in a playoff for a US Open berth might have crushed another player, but Lucas Glover wouldn’t let it beat him. He departed that US Open qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, in early June frustrated but still certain he was on the right path to curing his putting woes by switching to a long putter.

“Walking back to the car after missing that putt,” Glover recalled, “my dad [Jimmy] was there, and Tommy [Lamb, his caddie] was with me, obviously, and Tom just looked at me and goes: ‘I don’t really care that you missed that putt. This is a process with this new putter, and there’s going to be some bumps, but I can’t tell you how much better you look and how much more confident you look.’ I needed to hear that at that moment, even though I was kind of dejected.”

Glover ventured north the next morning to the RBC Canadian Open and started to see results he was looking for. He wasn’t shaky over short putts. He took a step forward. His stubborn belief in himself was rewarded.

“That was a big week for me,” Glover said. “Yeah, that’s when I started to feel really good about what I was doing. I finished 20th. Finishing 20th sucks now, but it was nice at the time.”

Glover laughed at the thought. He’s having the last laugh a lot lately.

On an oppressively warm afternoon in the home of the blues, Glover refused to buckle, even as his swing was deserting him and World No. 4 Patrick Cantlay was stalking him. Thanks to a series of big putts in regulation and one solid hole in a sudden-death playoff, Glover won for the second time in as many weeks on Sunday, capturing the FedEx St Jude Championship at TPC Southwind.

The victory, worth $3.6 million, was the sixth of his career and continued an amazing run for the 43-year-old South Carolina native who in June wasn’t even in the running to keep his PGA Tour card.

In the playoff, Cantlay, seeking his fourth win in his last six playoff starts, pulled his tee shot left at the par-4 18th hole and watched it trickle into the water hazard, costing him a penalty stroke. Glover, after safely finding the fairway and the green, two-putted from 22 feet and then watched as Cantlay, putting from almost the same distance and line, burned the right edge on his par save.

Coming on the heels of his win last Sunday at the Wyndham Championship, the victory in the opening FedEx Cup playoff event made the former US Open champion the sixth player over age 40 to win back-to-back tournaments in the last 40 years. Vijay Singh did it three times, most recently in 2008 when he won the FedEx St Jude Championship and Dell Technologies Championship. Glover also is the first player over 40 to win a playoff event since Tiger Woods at the 2018 Tour Championship.

“I said yesterday that the big guns would be coming and they came. I was just the last man standing,” Glover said after converting for the first time in 10 tries with a 36-hole lead thanks to a closing one-under 69. He finished at 15-under 265, while Cantlay stormed into the playoff thanks to a bogey-free 64.

Last man standing.@Lucas_Glover_ takes the victory @FedExChamp despite being chased by three former #FedExCup champions. pic.twitter.com/aiC1goWqya

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 14, 2023

“Yeah, just hooked the ball a little too much off the tee, bad shot, obviously, and paid the price,” Cantlay, winless this season but winner of the last two editions of the BMW Championship, said of the playoff hole. “It’s been a long year, so I’m looking forward to the next two weeks and the opportunity I have.”

Glover arrived last week at the Wyndham 114th in the FedEx Cup standings and moved into the post-season 49th. He now advances to the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields in fourth place and with a realistic chance to win the $18-million bonus for the season-long title.

“I mean, if you would have told me this three months ago, I’d tell you you’re crazy. But at the same time, if you asked me legitimately did I think I was capable, I’d say yes, even then,” said Glover, who has risen from 119th to 53rd to 30th in the Official World Golf Ranking the last two weeks. “It’s just one of those sad ways athletes are wired. We always believe in ourselves no matter how bad it is.”

Rejuvenated thanks to switching to a long putter at the Memorial Tournament that was similar to the one Adam Scott had been using, Glover had a chance to win the tournament in regulation but left a 21-foot birdie putt a foot short at 18. He struggled with his full swing for much of the day, but the putter bailed him out time and again. He converted par saves of seven, 20 and 11 feet on his inward nine plus a 29-foot bogey putt after finding the water at the par-3 14th.

“Today it was a fight. It was a physical fight. I was fighting my swing and wasn’t hitting it great,” Glover said. “My short game was there, and that’s the only reason I’m sitting here now is my chipping and putting yesterday and today.”

Glover began the day one stroke ahead of Taylor Moore, who proceeded to bogey his first two holes to allow breathing room. Jordan Spieth converted two early birdies to get within one, and Tommy Fleetwood also made a run at Glover, but neither ever caught him.

Cantlay finally did, however. Having begun the day five back, the 2021 FedEx Cup champion slowly worked his way up the board and also got within two when he chipped in from 24 feet at the par-4 10th. He sprang into the lead with birdies at 15 and 16, but he couldn’t capitalise on birdie tries of 18 and 20 feet, respectively, on the final two holes. Glover’s tap-in birdie at the par-5 16th set up extra holes.

Playing alongside Cantlay, Rory McIlroy birdied the last for a bogey-free 65 to end up tied for third with Fleetwood, who shot 68 but missed birdie tries on his final two holes that could have tied Cantlay.

The top three in the FedEx Cup standings remained the same with Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and McIlroy. Glover and Cantlay round out the top five.

In the race for the top 50 and the second leg of the playoffs at the BMW Championship, two men earned their way in and two fell out. Cam Davis closed with a three-under 67 and finished in a large group at 11-under 269, good for T-5, to move from 62 to 44. Former Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama played his final six holes in five under par for a clutch 65 and 281 to end up T-16, lifting him 10 places to 47th.

Top 50 status also earns exemptions into the eight 2024 signature events in 2024.

The odd men out were Mackenzie Hughes (51) and Nick Hardy (52), who began the week 47th and 50th, respectively.

Glover is now a lock for the Tour Championship at East Lake. He was asked what this unlikely run says about him.

“Maybe I’m really stubborn,” Glover replied. “You know, 10 years up until this run, I’ve underachieved and knew it. It was all because of putting. I won the [John] Deere [Classic, in 2021] because I hit it in the grip a bunch for a week basically and snuck them in somehow.

“Yeah, it was just believing in myself, and hard-headed and stubborn enough to not give up. Never really thought about it, honestly. It was just, I’ll figure it out, and it took something drastic to figure it out, but it’s worked, obviously.”

Quite obviously.

The post Glover bags the win at FedEx St Jude appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

This Lucas Glover fellow is hot. Riding the wave hot. Hitting on all cylinders hot. Maybe US Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson should take a look at him hot.

On a steamy day in the city known as the “Home of the Blues”, Glover was red-hot, a carry over from his impressive victory last weekend at the Wyndham Championship. His bogey-free six-under 64 at TPC Southwind was the low round of the day and propelled him to the 36-hole lead in the FedEx St Jude Championship by one over Jordan Spieth at 10-under 130.

Glover’s last six rounds have been 66-64-62-68-66-64. He has posted 20 consecutive rounds of par or better. In his last five starts, Glover has had four finishes of sixth or better (the other was a missed cut at the 3M Open) as he’s progressed from a 43-year-old veteran with a glitchy putting stroke who resided outside the top 150 on the FedEx Cup points to a very confident golfer making a serious bid for the FedEx Cup title.

When he switched to a long putter at the Memorial Tournament, Glover was 184th on the FedEx Cup points list. His run to the Wyndham title made him one of the more unlikely participants to reach the top 70 and a postseason berth. If he were to win again this week — and, granted, he’s only halfway home with 13 players within three shots of his pace — he’d advance to the second stage at the BMW Championship in third place in the standings.

He came into the week 49th. At Wyndham, he was 112th.

The 2009 US Open champion can’t remember a time he has ever played better. “But I’m old enough,” he said, “to know it can change the other way in a hurry, too, so kind of ride the wave and just don’t overthink it, keep going, and play until it runs out and then figure it out after that.”

More than once he said he was going to keep “riding the wave” and “not overthink it,” and, really, what else is a guy supposed to say when he has finally conquered the yips and is now a very troublesome interloper on the playoff scene.

But it’s not just the putter that has Glover humming along. He only ranks 36th in strokes gained in that category through two rounds. But he is first in strokes gained/approach the green at plus-5.675 and first in proximity to the hole with a cumulative average of 21 feet, nine inches.

“I’m executing pretty much what I’m seeing,” said the South Carolina native. “Don’t overthink it and no need to change anything, just keep riding it.”

See, there he goes again.

But we really can’t blame him. As Glover explained, “This game is cruel, man. You can play nice and just get cruddy results, and then you can kind of hit it bad and get a couple good breaks and get some good results.”

In other words, don’t take things for granted. Glover is 0-for-9 in converting a 36-hole lead into a victory. So, there’s that.

Earlier in the day, tour player Michael Kim tweeted on X (formerly Twitter), “Uhhh, Lucas Glover for Ryder Cup?”

Glover hadn’t seen it. “That’s very nice of him to say.”

But, seriously, don’t you want the hot hand on your side? Glover is so hot that he didn’t mind how hot it was as the heat index soared to 119 degrees, though he did sweat a little. “I didn’t get this wet in the shower this morning,” he quipped.

“The hotter the better. I’m old,” he later added.

The hotter the better is right.

The post In TPC Southwind’s scorching conditions, no one is hotter than leader Lucas Glover appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

When Lucas Glover won the 2021 John Deere Classic, it ended a 10-year winless drought. He didn’t need to wait that long for his next PGA Tour victory.

Glover put on the definition of a ball-striking clinic and got some help from Russell Henley down the stretch to capture the Wyndham Championship and deny Henley once again from winning at Sedgefield Country Club (Henley suffered a disappointing defeat in 2019 as well).

The 43-year-old Glover ranked first in driving accuracy, strokes gained/approach and strokes gained/tee-to-green. Glover’s driver is a 9.5-degree Srixon Z785 with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7X shaft. Into the greens he uses a split set of Srixon irons, utilising the more-forgiving ZX5 Mk II for the 4-iron and more player-ish ZX7 Mk II for the rest of the set.

Glover was handy on the greens as well with his LAB Mezz.1 Max mallet putter that he put into play at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, ranking 16th in strokes gained/putting — a massive improvement over his season rank of 181st.

Glover uses a broomstick version of the putter with a long shaft and split grip. “I needed a whole new idea,” Glover told pgatour.com in Detroit. “A whole new brain function. The other one obviously wasn’t working. I’ve been struggling with short putts for so long. I just thought I needed to teach myself to do something else and it’s been working. … Once you learn how to stand there and address it, it pretty much works itself. It’s been a nice change.”

Winning usually is.

What Lucas Glover had in the bag at the 2023 Wyndham Championship
Ball: Srixon Z-Star XV
Driver: Srixon Z785 (Fujikura Ventus Blue 7X), 9.5 degrees
3-wood: Ping G430 Max, 15 degrees
5-wood: Ping G430 Max, 18 degrees
Irons (4): Srixon ZX5 Mk II; (5-PW): Srixon ZX7 Mk II
Wedges: Cleveland RTX 6 (52, 56, 60 degrees)
Putter: LAB Mezz.1 Max

The post Winner’s Bag: The clubs Lucas Glover used to win the 2023 Wyndham Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“It’s been a long road, fighting something for 10 years.”

Those were the words of 43-year-old Lucas Glover, following his fifth career win on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship, where he emerged from a two-hour rain delay to out-duel a desperately unlucky Russell Henley to stamp his trip to the FedExCup playoffs. He was talking about the putting yips, which have dogged him a decade and led to a switch to the long putter in June that carried him to victory in Greensboro. Surrounded by his two children — his daughter crying, his son repeating: “Dad, you won!” with something like incredulity — Glover fought back tears and seemed to value a very different destination almost more than the playoffs: Home.

“I’m too old to be away this much,” he said, and despite the fact that he’ll have at least one more week of travel ahead of him, the security he gained here will give him more time with the children at his sides.

From 2005 to 2023 ?@Lucas_Glover_ knows how to get it done. https://t.co/w0NltTG0G2 pic.twitter.com/hlvZ4OyNmV

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 7, 2023

In the end, after a week of frantic movement as players ricocheted up and down the projected rankings, Glover didn’t just win a trophy and the attendant $1.36 million prize, he was the only player who started the week outside the playoff cut line who managed to change his fortunes in Greensboro. Only the top 70 make the first playoff event next week in Memphis, and Glover, at 112th entering the week, wasn’t even near the bubble. Winning takes care of quite a bit, though, and Glover’s masterful performance ensured that he vaulted all the way to 49th. The casualty of his ascent, and the only player who fell out of the top 70 in Greensboro, was Austin Eckroat, who missed the cut and dropped from 70th to 74th.

In terms of the bubble, the story of the Wyndham Championship was a story of “almost”. First and most prominent, Justin Thomas engaged in a thrilling late battle to force his way into the playoffs and increase his viability as a Ryder Cup captain’s pick, and finished just one spot — and one stroke — shy of pulling it off.

“I know this game doesn’t owe you anything,” Thomas said Sunday, after his round but with the outcome still uncertain, “but I really felt like I fought hard enough to deserve it.”

One spot behind Thomas, Adam Scott watched one of golf’s most impressive streaks of longevity come to an end. Along with Matt Kuchar, he’s made every iteration of the FedExCup playoffs since they began in 2007. After struggling on Friday and Saturday relative to the field, the Australian put together a massive run on Sunday, shooting 63 to finish in a tie for fifth. Like Thomas, he was just a single shot from entering the top 70. Unlike Thomas, he seemed at ease with missing it; perhaps even a bit relieved.

“If it does end, I think it’s a good thing,” Scott said of his streak. “I think it gives me a good chance to look at what I need to do differently to be more competitive in whatever competition I’m playing in.”

Billy Horschel came into the final round tied for the lead with Glover, and was projected to advance to the playoffs despite a starting position of 116th. Unfortunately for him, he shot a two-over 72 when he needed his magic the most, and finishing solo fourth was only enough to elevate him to 90th in the standings.

Davis Thompson, Shane Lowry, and Michael Kim also came up short on the bubble, with Kim’s T-5 position giving him the best chance of the three until a Sunday 68 halted his momentum. On the other side of that equation, Ben Griffin and Beau Hossler held on to their precarious playoff positions despite missing the cut on Friday (Griffin, a cliffhanger of sorts, fell from 68th to 70th, barely ahead of Thomas), while Matt NeSmith, Vincent Norman, and JJ Spaun finished in the middle of the pack to keep bubble at bay and qualify for the playoffs.

After Thomas’ near heroics and the weather delay, it was Glover who emerged as the star of the show. On Saturday, he revealed that his putting had been so bad that if he didn’t find success with the long putter, he was considering trying it left-handed. The stats tell the dire story. Coming into the Wyndham, he was 180th in Strokes Gained: Putting. This week, he was 15th, and punctuated his win with a seven-footer to save par on the last hole. In all, since the switch, he’s notched four top-10 finishes, including the win this week, and only one missed cut.

To win on August 6 was especially poignant — it was his grandfather’s birthday, the man he called a “mentor and a hero” who got him involved with the game and played an instrumental role in his golf education. After he won, he met up with a group of family members, including three uncles, and pointed at the sky in tribute to his grandfather.

Glover still remembers when the yips started, a decade ago at the Colonial. There, on the 13th green, he made a four-putt that came “out of nowhere”. Since then, he’s been through stages where he shakes and seems to lose all function and coordination on the greens. He’s not afraid to call it the “yips”, and says that admitting his problem has been part of the solution. Adopting the long putter was a response to nothing else working, he needed to rewire his brain, and turn putting into a completely new exercise. The physics of the long putter were different enough that the mechanics of it felt like a whole new process.

Toward the end of his press conference, his Srixon hat pulled low over his head, a reporter asked about the most radical thing he had done in the last decade to fix his putting. Glover didn’t need to think long, and his answer was just one word:

“This.”

The post Lucas Glover slays the yips, wins the Wyndham and it turns his career around appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Just ask Lucas Glover.

During his first round at The American Express, Glover was standing over a routine par putt when this happened…

? pic.twitter.com/jSpMSRhqva

— brent (@bhaydon5) January 19, 2023

At first I wondered if this was some new and interesting technique, but turns out it wasn’t. He had two other short putts that were caught on camera during his opening round, and each had perfectly normal backstrokes.

Nope, this was a good old fashioned yip. How did it happen? Without delving into the recesses of Glover’s mind, there are a few things that stand out.

First, you can watch in the video above a pronounced pause between his forward press and the start of his stroke. He’s almost frozen over the ball, but the nervous energy and tension keeps building nonetheless.

That’s why, when he does manage to get his stroke going, the movement is so short and jerky. The smaller muscles in his wrists and hands seize up, and his wrists “spasm”.

Pretty fascinating to see what happens the moment Glover's (1 inch?) backswing ends and his downswing technically begins.

No movement in the shoulders, just a twitch of the wrists ? pic.twitter.com/NXpytbF1Fa

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) January 19, 2023

But don’t worry, this horror story has a happy ending. Glover yipped the putt into the hole, and finished strong with a three-under 69.

The post Lucas Glover’s nightmare putting-stroke yip explained appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Remember the PGA Grand Slam of Golf? Sure you do! It was that 36-hole event in which the four men’s major champs from that year played against each other. Over the course of 35 years, the event produced some great moments until it was cancelled after the 2014 edition. Tiger Woods won seven times. Phil Mickelson fired a 59. And who can forget Lucas Glover cruising to a five-shot win?

OK, so most golf fans probably don’t remember the latter, but it’s Glover’s triumph in 2009 (pictured above) that has been immortalised with a plaque at Port Royal. And a rather obscure one at that.

Port Royal’s signature 16th hole is a spectacular 235-yard par 3 on a waterside cliff. It’s a beast even in calm conditions, but you can imagine the difficulty with high winds. Or with a tournament on the line — even if it happens to be a four-man exhibition, which the course hosted from 2009 to 2014. Because, as legend has it, Glover uttered: “Man, I’ve never been so nervous on a shot” on his way to winning in 2009. And there’s a plaque there with that quote.

“Man, I’ve never been so nervous on a shot”, reads the plaque on No. 16 tee at Port Royal Golf Course, host of the ⁦@Bermuda_Champ⁩

Lucas Glover spoke these words en route to winning the 2009 Grand Slam of Golf. Glover makes his debut in @Bermuda_Champ⁩ this week. pic.twitter.com/AK9FaOuJRa

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) October 25, 2022

Interesting. On the obscurity ranking, it still doesn’t top El Camaleon Golf Club having a plaque where Jon Rahm struck his first-ever PGA Tour shot (as an amateur), but that’s up there. Especially considering that, again, Glover won that little hit-and-giggle by five shots over that year’s Masters champ, Angel Cabrera.

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The post This week’s PGA Tour venue has one of the more obscure golf course plaques we’ve ever seen appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
The PGA Tour/FedEx Cup bubble is a steady source of high drama, from the Wyndham Championship through the Tour Championship.

At this week’s FedEx St Jude Championship, the top 125 players at the end of the regular season fought it out to finish inside the top 70 and keep their playoff experience alive at next week’s BMW Championship.

In the past, when four playoff events were held, it was somewhat easier to climb up from the lower ranks during the course of the playoffs, but since 2019 and the start of the three-eventer, it took a special performance in the very first leg to stay alive.

That was true again in Memphis, and when the final putt had fallen, four players had stepped up sufficiently to go from outside No. 70 to the safety of qualification. Adam Scott, Lucas Glover, Andrew Putnam and Wyndham Clark were the beneficiaries of strong play and, in some cases, a bit of late luck.

Scott’s campaign was one of the most definitive, a closing 66 capping a stellar week and a T-5 finish. That vaulted the Aussie up 32 spots, from 77th to 45th, and was more than enough to secure a tee time at Delaware Country Club.

“What’s satisfying?” he asked rhetorically. “Getting through I guess, but I played really poorly yesterday and somehow shot a decent score. To turn it around and play solid today and give myself a chance to go through, I’m happy with that. I get to play four rounds next week … I feel even though I’m not winning this event, I feel like I’m getting something out of the week.

“I think that’s sometimes the hardest thing at this point in my career is week after week switching the mind on all the time,” he added. “Floating around on autopilot sometimes and that doesn’t get you very far, so I had to focus a little bit more this week.”

One of only two players to gain more ground than Scott in Memphis was Lucas Glover, who finished a stroke better than the Australian at 12-under to secure a T-3 finish. He started the week barely inside the postseason bubble, at 121st, and ended 34th, which not only ensures a continued playoff run but gives him a decent chance to qualify for the Tour Championship with another solid week.

“It’s nice. Kind of a similar situation a couple years ago,” Glover said, referring to his 2019 run. “I had one-and-a-half good weeks and ended up in Atlanta. That was kind of in the back of my head. Thought, you know, just got to get to the next week and then everybody’s got a shot.”

Like Scott, Putnam finished at 11-under and made the bubble cut-off with room to spare, moving from 87th to 47th on the eligibility points list.

Wyndham Clark’s chances, however, were on a knife’s edge all day. For a long time, it appeared as though Lee Hodges was going to be the fourth player to go from out to in, and Clark did himself no favours by playing his final five holes in four-over, only avoiding worse trouble with an up-and-down par on 18 to close out a two-over 72. It seemed as though he had blown his chance, especially when Hodges finished with a birdie on 18 to post 65. But fluctuations in the leaderboard late in the day, after both had left the course, hurt Hodges’ final position and brought Clark back to No. 70. It got to the point where a single Sungjae Im bogey on 18 would have brought Hodges back into the mix, but it wasn’t to be.

For each player who fought their way inside the top 70, simple math indicates that someone else must fall out. The most frustrating figure of the bubble dance this week was Anirban Lahiri, who missed the cut by two shots but still had a fighting chance to make the BMW. Instead, he finished 71st in the standings, trailing Clark by just three points. (Moments before the end of the tournament, the margin was a ridiculously slim .072 points.)

Elsewhere, Brendon Todd needed a strong closing round to save his playoff hopes, but shot 75 to slip out of the top 70 after starting the week in 68th place. The final two players to fall from the top 70 were John Huh, who withdrew with a lower-back injury during his second round, and Lanto Griffin, who in late July opted to undergo back surgery and miss the rest of the 2021-22 season, but remained in 69th place at the start of this week.

Sepp Straka, who nearly won the event after six straight missed cuts, rose to eighth place, while Will Zalatoris took over the top spot from Scottie Scheffler with his first PGA Tour victory. Brian Harman, with a T-3 finish, made a huge leap from 55th to 23rd, and now has an inside track to the Tour Championship, while fellow Georgia Bulldog Kevin Kisner used his own T-20 finish to crack the top 30. Trey Mullinax rose from 70th to 40th at 11-under, and two rookies, Tom Kim and Sahith Theegala, also moved inside the top 30 with strong showings. Seamus Power, Shane Lowry, Aaron Wise and Cameron Tringale had the opposite experience — they were inside the top 30, but middling finishes or missed cuts pushed them out, and they’ll have work to do at the BMW Championship.

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The post Major winners Scott, Glover among four pros to play their way inside FedEx Cup top 70, extend season another week appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege
A decade can seem like an eternity in sports, a 10-year window in which careers often begin and end and the headliners rotate in and out, here today, gone tomorrow. Lucas Glover was yesterday’s news a long time ago.

Glover won the U.S. Open in 2009 and the Wells Fargo Championship in May 2011 and then … nothing. He did not disappear, but neither was he a fixture late on Sunday afternoons. Until this Sunday afternoon.

Ten years, two months and three days after his last PGA Tour victory, Glover went out on a wet afternoon at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., and became relevant again, winning the John Deere Classic by two shots.

“It’s been a long 10 years,” Glover said. “There’s been some struggles. I’ve had a couple good years, but nothing like this, where I had a real chance to win.”

He did so with a flourish, a final-round seven-under-par 64, the low round of the day, that included his playing the final seven holes in five under for a 19-under-par 265 total. As if 10 years was not long enough to wait, he then had to wait another 30 minutes or so to see whether anyone might catch him. No one did, Ryan Moore and Kevin Na coming closest and tying for second.

When an athlete is lost in his sport’s wilderness for years on end, the obvious question is whether surrendering to frustration was a consideration, allowing the game to win. No doubt Glover was frustrated, but a U.S. Open victory on a résumé likely is a strong inducement to keep searching, and he was adamant that his self-belief never wavered, even at 41 and long removed from hoisting a trophy.

Andy Lyons
Lucas Glover plays his approach shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the John Deere Classic.

“One-hundred percent,” he said. “I still thought I was good enough. I’m working harder now and more efficiently than I did in my 20s. I still can honestly say I can do it, and I never doubted that. It’s been a difficult 10 years, but I never lost my faith. I felt some good golf coming. I didn’t know how good. I think a lot of times it comes out of nowhere. I’ve been playing well and having some good rounds. A 63 [in the second round at the John Deere] and 64 proved myself right on that.

“I knew it was in there. I had to clean up my brain a little bit, I think. Just hit some shots and just play golf. I’ve been pretty good for a while. I never lost sight of believing I could do this and win again. Probably the most gratifying thing is that I proved myself right and actually proved a lot of other people wrong, which feels good, too. But it always nice to prove yourself right if you truly believe in something.”

There were low points in his journey, two in particular. “I went to the Korn Ferry [Tour] finals twice, one after injury and one after I played so bad. I was able to get my card back both times. It was bad as far as being on tour, but in the grand scheme of things I was still a pro golfer.”

And a good enough one to buck golf’s youth movement and join the ranks of those 40 and older to have won in the last year, including Phil Mickelson, Stewart Cink, Brian Gay and Matt Jones.

Icon Sportswire
Lucas Glover reacts after holing a par putt that would seal his victory.

Glover’s five back-nine birdies on Sunday allowed him to separate himself from an exceedingly crowded pack that at one time had eight players tied for the lead. He was aiming for a 20-under score, came up one short, but it was sufficient.

“Putts started going in,” he said. “I ironed it pretty good the last few days and obviously made some Friday and shooting what I shot yesterday. They just went in and I kept the pedal down. I was under the impression 20 was a good number for me. Wanted to get that just as a personal goal. I wanted to keep pushing. There were too many birdies and too many great players behind me. Wanted to continue to push, push, push.”

The victory, the fourth of his PGA Tour career, comes with the usual perks—a seven-figure payday and a two-year tour exemption—but for Glover, it came with a bonus. It was the first time his kids, Lucille, 8, and Lucas Jr., 5, saw him win, via television. “My wife, Krista, too, the first time the three of them saw me win a golf tournament as a family,” he said.

And that’s a memory that will last not just a decade, but forever.

The post Lucas Glover a winner again after ‘a long 10 years’ appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.