Lucas

Glover

Glover won last week in Greensboro to sneak into the playoffs and he’s showing no sign of slowing down. He piped 11-of-14 fairways today and pelted 14 GIR. He gained 2.4 strokes on approach today. The highlight of his round was a 32'7" eagle bomb at the par-5 16th. Glover is well aware that his run of good play won’t last forever, “I’m old enough to know it can change the over way in a hurry, too, so kind of ride the wave and just don’t over think it, keep going, and play until it runs out and then figure it out after that.” He’s now been T-7 or better after 12 of his last 14 rounds played. This will be his 10th time holding a 36-hole lead or co-lead on the PGA Tour and he’s failed to finish inside of the top 3 in any of those events.

The 43-year-old piped 46-of-54 fairways for the week, leading the field to take full advantage of preferred lies. From there, he peppered 90 percent of greens in regulation, also leading the field at week’s end. Glover capped it off with a hot putter, gaining 4.9 strokes putting for the week. He made the switch to a long putter at the Memorial Tournament, losing strokes putting in four of seven events, but picking up some much-needed confidence with his good weeks. “Once I figured out my tendencies with it, it became fun to kind of teach myself. I think I said it last night or yesterday was kind of that thing if you ever want a Tour player to practice more, you give them a new club because they’ve got to get used to it, figure it out. That’s kind of how it’s been.” This will go in the books as his fifth career win on the PGA Tour and first since the 2021 John Deere Classic. Glover will now try to maintain momentum at TPC Southwind for leg one of the FedExCup Playoffs.

Glover put on a ball-striking clinic today with preferred lies in effect. He piped 10 (of 14) fairways and landed 16 greens in regulation. That iron play was good for 5.2 strokes gained on approach. The highlight of his day was a hole-out eagle with a wedge in hand from 135 yards at the par-4 12th. His putter was right around field average today but that club has been the catalyst for his recent surge in form. Speaking on his decision to switch to a long putter recently, “It was 10 years of fighting the legit yips and made my mind up with some urging from some guys on my team to just try it.” It’s been a good decision as he arrived with back-to-back top 10s and showing no sign of slowing down.

Glover arrived with 17 career starts at the Copperhead Course with six of those being top-25 finishes. He has no shortage of course knowledge and today he got the job done with the flat stick. He gained three strokes putting which was third in the field, this morning. Glover splashed home six putts from outside of 10 feet including a trio from outside of 20 feet, the longest being 34'1" to start his day. The best finish on his tournament resume is a T4 (2007) and he’ll try to match or exceed that over the next three days. The Clemson product arrived with 12 straight finishes outside of the top 35 so recent form certainly wasn’t on his side to start the week.

Glover started the week at 121st in the FedExCup standings, barely sneaking through the top-125 mark. He walked through Memphis with four sub-70 rounds to climb 78 spots on the live projected standings. “I finally hit it nice and I made a bunch of 10- to 20-foot putts. Still missed a bunch from two feet, but yeah, I mean, I’m missing putts where other guys don’t even mark it. That’s been an issue for a while. But I putted beautifully out from mid range and made a bunch of long ones. I just got to shore up the nerves on the short ones.” Glover has now played his way to the second event of the FEC Playoffs in four of the last six seasons.

The Clemson product racked up 24 birdies at TPC Deere Run en route to victory at the 2021 JDC. It was his fourth career PGA TOUR title and first since the 2011 Wells Fargo Championship. This time around he enters the week with a 16-for-21 record on the season, currently ranked 103rd in the FedExCup race. While he has been steady in earning paychecks, he’s found just one top 20 in his last 14 stroke-play events. In recent weeks he’s working on some technical stuff with his swing, “was just having trouble hitting my shot, my shot shape, which is a draw. Found out just in my setup my weight was way too far in my heels... So last week was the first week taking it into competition and it was good to make the cut and nice to get some reps, but definitely was different.” Glover ranks 58th off-the-tee this season and 36th on approach. His short game remains a wildcard from week to week.

It will mark the fourth U.S. Open appearance for Griffin, who’s No. 104 in the world rankings and finished T-35 last year at Torrey Pines and T-43 at Winged Foot in 2020. Thirteen (of 106) players earned spots into next week’s championship at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., including world No. 86 Davis Riley (69-63), Chris Naegel (65-69), amateur Sam Bennett (69-66), PGA Tour winner Danny Lee (65-70), Adam Schenk (69-66), Denny McCarthy (69-67), Joel Dahmen (71-66), Patrick Rodgers (70-67), Andrew Putnam (68-69) and Wyndham Clark (70-67). Hayden Buckley secured the final available spot via a 5-for-1 playoff, with Sweden’s Davis Lingmerth finishing as first alternate and Canada’s Adam Svensson as second alternate. Among notable names failing to qualify at this site are Cameron Champ, Ryan Palmer, Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello, 2009 U.S. Open champ Lucas Glover, Luke Donald and Jason Dufner.

The 42-year-old Glover, a four-time Tour winner, recently finished T-30 at the Masters, where he made his fifth cut in nine starts at Augusta National. In 19 previous appearances at Harbour Town Golf Links, Glover has made 12 cuts with this best finish seventh in 2008 for his only top 10; he was 33rd in 2021. On the season, he’s made 11 cuts in 14 starts with his best finish coming in January at the Sony Open, where he was T-5. More recently, he was T-18 at the Valero Texas Open following a missed cut at The Players.

Glover couldn’t get the putts to drop on Thursday but everything was working for him today. The Clemson product split 8-of-14 fairways en route to 14 GIR and from there he gained 1.6 strokes putting. “I woke up this morning and just said, all right, maybe today’s the day we get something out of it and we did, it was good. We had the chip-in we referenced and made a couple midrange putts, but still had a few lip-outs or it could have been really good.” Glover arrived with nothing better than a T30 finish over his last six starts but did have back-to-back top 15s on the Valero resume to fill his confidence bank a little. So far, so good, as he currently sits just one shot off the early pace set by Kevin Chappell.