LOS CABOS, Mexico — The PGA Tour retired its Comeback Player of the Year award after Steve Stricker won it twice in a row, but Lucas Glover would be the hands down winner this year after he overcame his demons with the putter and won twice in a row, including a FedEx Cup Playoff event.
Always one of the Tour’s more introspective and reflective pros, Glover is never shy with his opinions, and after the second round of the World Wide Technology Championship, where he made his first start of the FedEx Cup Fall, he touched on a wide-range of topics such as the selection process for the U.S. team events — he thinks Keegan Bradley deserved to be picked —whether the Tour’s signature events are still a terrible idea now that he’s exempt for them all and if LIV players should be allowed back on the Tour.
GWK: Have you and the R&D folks at Linksoul collaborated yet on moisture wicking pants after your swamp-ass situation in Memphis?
LG: Yeah, look (points to his dry, breathable pants). I got a bunch of little holes in them. Yeah, that’s been fun. Had to embrace that otherwise it could go the other way quickly. But I’ve had people sending me pants from all over, saying, here try these. Linksoul came to me the very next week and said here, these are for next year, but we’ll give them to you now.
GWK: Having some time to reflect on what you've accomplished last year, do you have a different sense of what it means to you? Have you done anything special to celebrate it?
LG: Nothing really special to celebrate. Just being home that’s a celebration enough because I wasn’t there very much.
I said the same thing after I won the U.S. Open in 2009 in that I want to use this as a springboard to keep going, keep doing it, which is why I decided to play a little bit this fall. I’m gonna be 44 when the season turns over and I want to go in sharp and get my body right, work hard in the offseason and then come play and see where I’m at.
GWK: What has it been like to have an offseason. and what made you sign up for Cabo?
LG: It’s been good. Got quality time with the kids and doing all the dad stuff.
I had a couple of months off, and I was gonna play Mississippi and just wasn’t ready, and then was going to play Vegas and then just said, “No, I’m just not there yet.” So decided to come to Cabo and then we’ll play Bermuda. Just trying to stay sharp for next year. Didn’t want to take too much time off and show up in Hawaii with how I felt yesterday, honestly, which was rusty and kind of lost.
GWK: What percentage of PGA Tour players do you consider to be boring and simple minded?
LG: Myself included?
GWK: In other words, how many players possess a unique personality or interesting character outside of golf?
LG: Off the course? Probably all because we’re all different. On the course, I think we’re all very similar. You know, there’s a handful who wear their emotions on their sleeves and you know, have a more boisterous attitude. But on the course I think, you know, maybe 5 percent are unique and then off golf the course 100 percent. But out here, it’s such a grind and everybody’s doing the same stuff. Everybody pretty much acts the same.
GWK: Do you have a different perspective on slow play on Tour than you did in your early days when it oftentimes was excruciating for you?
LG: It’s just the way it is now. I’ve kind of figured out how to use it to my advantage but not let it bother me so it doesn’t affect me. It’s just the way it is – it takes longer to play golf and courses are longer and the hole locations are harder and guys are slower, me, myself included. It’s just kind of the way it is now.
GWK: Do you have certain tactics that you use to try to cope with it?
LG: I go to the bathroom a lot even if I don’t have to go. If I know I’m gonna be last to hit I’ll kind of lag back so I don’t get up to my ball so quick. Yeah, absolutely. Stop to eat or drink, talk to family or whoever’s out watching me so I don’t have to wait. I just don’t want to get up to my ball and have to stand there too much.
GWK: Have you been conditioned to be a slower golfer?
LG: I think I’ve become slower in a smart way. I slowed down so I wasn’t waiting so much, so it didn’t affect me so much mentally. But also a little smarter player and take a little more time to think through stuff than I did in my early 20s.
GWK: Do you think American pro golfer in general and the PGA Tour membership is too cliquey? Like high school?
LG: Yes.
GWK: Do you share Keegan Bradley’s view that it has become too much of a boy’s club and in picking these teams?
LG: Seems like it, yeah.
GWK: Do you feel the result at the Ryder Cup could have been different with you on the team?
LG: I can’t answer that. I’d like to say yes but I can’t say for sure.
GWK: Did you feel you had done enough to make it?
LG: I felt I had done enough then. You know, maybe not over two years, right? Keegan, sure had, in my opinion. But according to the reason they have six picks I did enough.
GWK: Were you expecting a positive call from Zach Johnson?
LG: I didn’t really know. But you know, Zach and I are such good friends. I just tried to make it easy on him, try not to carry on the conversation because I know it’s not the most fun thing to do. But I knew as soon he started – I could just tell from his voice. I said, I understood and you know, go get’em and good luck.
GWK: How has not making the team motivated you for future team events?
LG: The next one is at Bethpage, that’s going to be pretty big and a cool spot for me. I’d love to be there in some capacity, playing or something. I’ve said every year, making those teams is one of the coolest honors in sports, playing for your country. And unfortunately, it hadn’t been at the forefront of my mind lately, because I’ve been playing so poorly. But now it’s there. It’s real. And yeah, I’d love to do it.
GWK: Do you feel more, less or similarly driven to succeed compared to the beginning of your career, in 2009 after the U.S. Open win?
LG: Very similar but for different reasons. Then it was more just me and for pride and trying to beat people; now it’s more of a mature drive. I want to do well, of course, but there’s a family to support and hopefully leave my kids as comfortable as possible. So very similarly driven but for different reasons.
GWK: What do you do differently to prepare for a week, a season a round in your 40s compared to your earlier days?
LG: It’s a lot more rest, that’s for sure. I have a strict warmup I do before the round, especially tournament days. There’s a lot more time in the gym than there was in the 20s. That never really clicked for me until I was early 30s that you got to do that. I always hit it long enough. And then it kind of dawned on me in my early 30s if you want to do this for a long time, you got to be in shape.
GWK: What do you think was the biggest break or week of your career — U.S. Open win excluded — that if it went differently, your life or career would have changed?
LG: Q-School in 2002. I lipped out a chip to get my card and that was like my second Q-School. I was 22 or getting ready to turn 23 and looking back it was the best thing that happened because I wasn’t ready for out here. I needed a full year on the Korn Ferry Tour to learn how to travel and play a ton and all that stuff. So that was a negative that looking back was a positive.
GWK: Did you think you could turn your putting around as quickly as you did and to the extent that you have?
LG: Yes, strictly because of self-belief. I wasn’t sure it would ever happen. But I felt like I could do it. It came about in a different way. For a long time, I thought I could just practice it and it would just go away once I made a bunch. That was wrong. I’ve learned just how wrong that was. It took going to a completely different method, a completely different motor skill and completely different everything to turn it around, which is the long putter. I believed – we all believe in ourselves to a fault, probably, stubbornly. I didn’t realize it would take something that drastic for it to happen.
GWK: Have your views on the signature events changed at all now that you're eligible for them?
LG: No, still think they’re terrible. Glad I’m in them, but it’s terrible. I said that when I wasn’t in them. I don’t think it needs to be divided like it is. I mean, it’s basically two tours, and there’s no reason those fields shouldn’t be bigger. The ironic one to me is the Players at 144 guys is the signature event of the PGA Tour with a cut and 144 guys. So yeah, I thought they were terrible when they announced them, I think they are terrible now.
GWK: Has Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour brass done anything since June 6 to restore your trust in them?
LG: No.
GWK: Have they been trying to do anything?
LG: I don’t know. I quit going to the meetings.
GWK: What do you think is the fair way to let LIV guys come back to the PGA Tour in the future?
LG: I have no idea. I don’t even know where to start.
GWK: Do you think they should be allowed to come back?
LG: Probably not. I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about it. Ask me in a week and I’ll put some thought to it.
GWK: What event or situation in your life caused the most personal growth?
LG: Probably when I won the U.S. Open because all of a sudden I’m 29 and I’ve had some success and had to mature quickly and grow up a little. There were more responsibilities and pulls on your time and actually had to answer my phone and stuff had to be done I didn’t want to do. All of a sudden, everybody cared what I thought. Before that nobody asked me what I thought about squat. You win a major and it’s like wwhat do you think about this? Same as I did a week ago.
GWK: Who where your role models?
LG: My grandfather was the biggest one. My dad, Jimmy, who’s not a golfer, not a sportsman, not anything. And then my mother.
I’ve always really looked up to my grandfather because he just he was a hard worker, grinder, played sports and then came home when he couldn’t play sports anymore and started the business. He kept his nose to the ground, cleaning toilets in textile mills. He was a spiritual guy, not very religious until later in life gave me my work ethic and drive and will just go get it.
GWK: What do you complain about more than anything else?
LG: Loud people. There’s no point in being loud and you know people stand three feet from you, don’t have to yell so everybody can hear you. But I find myself I’m to that point where I’ve become the old, get off my lawn guy. I’m kind of there. Over-opinionated loud people just drive me up the wall. I’ll complain about that.
GWK: Do you still go to bookstores, or do you order books online?
LG: Order online. Yeah, I still read a lot but I do order them online. It’s just easier.
Historical fiction is where I’ve been finding myself for the last four or five years and I still try to hold myself to two to one for every fiction book I read to non-fiction.
