Glover returns to the scene of his prime
It’s been ten years since Lucas Glover fended off Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and David Duval to emerge the surprise winner at the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. Ten years of ups and downs, mostly downs.
“I think it’s just golf,” Glover said yesterday. “I mean, to be honest, I don’t think there’s been anybody to play this game that hasn’t been fried at one point or another. Last year was just kind of was what it was. I had some family stuff, I had an injury.
“I had a great year in ’17, I guess. But leading up to that, it was pretty up and down and some lean times, but again, I don’t know of anybody that’s played this game for a long time that hasn’t gone through some ups and downs.”
Glover hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since the 2011 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. He remembers making just $60,000 one year, but can’t remember the exact year.
“That was a pretty lean year, pretty low year. There were mornings it was hard to get up and go practice,” he said. “But I did it and I feel like all that stuff enabled me to have the ’17 I had and then the ’18, ’19, this wraparound thing, it all really runs together.”
As Glover spoke, rain pounded the media tent, as it did all week in the weathermarred ’09 Open. Glover never played a hole on Thursday, but his patience got him through the week on top, even after the big names made their run.
“It would be naïve to sit up here and say I didn’t think Tiger and Phil and those guys were going to make a run,” he said. “That’s just them, and it’s golf, and they’re the best, and that’s why they’re the best. They’re going to make a run. And I knew it was coming. And sure enough, it did.
“But the biggest thing for me was I executed under the gun with all that going on, knowing it was going on and knowing they were coming, and I held them off. It might not have been the prettiest, but it was when it had to be.”
Glover, who played the Barclays here in 2016, said he gets a good feeling whenever he returns.
“I’m in every way a different person than 10 years ago, but I can still lean on all of that,” he said. “My golf swing is different, my putting stroke is different, my brain is different, everything is different. But at the same time, I still get comfortable when I walk into the clubhouse or drive through the gate or whatever. It’s just that calming feeling. It’s almost like how I imagine some guys feel driving down Magnolia Lane at Augusta that have had success there. It’s just like an automatic deep breath, like I’ve done it here, let’s see what we can do again.”