GREENSBORO (N.C.) – Lucas Glover had reached the end of his rope.
Glover had been plagued by the yips for more than a decade. These are involuntary spasms of the wrist that happen when golfers try to putt. Glover has regained confidence in the greens thanks to a longer putter and a new putting grip. He holed enough putts to win the Wyndham championship and earn his 5th career PGA Tour title.
Glover finished the 72-hole round with a score of 20-under-260. This was one stroke ahead of Russell Henley, and Ben An.
Glover, winner of the U.S. Open 2009, tried everything including putting while his eyes were closed. Stats reveal a grim story. Glover’s miss rate was 2.71 percent, which ranked him 196th in the Tour. Glover missed 24 of 863 putts that were within 3 feet (863 out of 887). In 2021-22 he missed 27 putts from 3 feet and in (193 4th). He was having such a difficult time this year – 26 missed short shots by July – that the 43-year old considered switching to a left-handed putter or a longer one.
He said, “I tried the long-handled putter first.” “I reached a point where I needed to learn a new — a new brain function and a new method. I had two week off before Memorial, so I bought [a new putter] to learn how to use and have been sticking with that.
Glover, who won the Rocket Mortgage Classic last month, added an L.A.B. The Mezz.1 Max, with a mallet-head, ranked fifth for Strokes Gained Putting. This was his first top-10 of the season.
Glover, who ranked in 15th place in SG: Putting last week, said that the change made a huge difference. Making all your tap-ins was nice. It’s just that I like it. “When my speed is good, I make a lot more putts. So it’s really good.”
Glover was 167 th on the FedEx Cup before the RBC Canadian Open, in June. But he reeled off 3 straight top 10s – a t-4 at Rocket Mortgage Classic; a t-6 at John Deere Classic; and a t-5 at Barbasol Championship. After missing the cut the previous week, Glover returned to the trophy hunt by making his 19 thcareer starts, the most for any player since 2004 after Starting the week at No. He needed to finish in a tie for second place to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. He did even better, moving up to No. The season-long point race saw him finish 49th.
Glover, who was tied with Billy Horschel for the 54-hole leader, started the final round with a bogey three-putt from 27 feet. He tapped in his fourth shot after he shaved off 4 inches from his 141-yard approach. He made a 7-footer at No. He drained a 7-foot birdie at No. To reach 20 under, you need to make a birdie on hole 11 and bogey the final three holes. Henley who has failed to win the tournament in the last four seasons, took the lead after a 2-putt par at 15, but then bogeyed the final three holes, shooting 69, and suffering another disappointing result.
Glover had a lucky break at 18 when he drove left. The ball appeared to be heading into a tree but bounced off of a golf cart, bringing it closer to the fairway. Glover smiled gleefully when he holed his last putt with his long putter.
“I have tried many different putters and styles and I’m now at the point where I know they don’t work. So this is what I’m doing.” It’s revived a lot of men’s careers, and they did it for the same reason whether they intended it or not. “When you’ve struggled as long as I did, or have had to, it was just what happened to happen to be the solution.”
