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You don’t need to search long or hard for the magical information provider known as the Interweb to uncover the unfortunate state that has plagued Lucas Glover’s putting game for the past decade. Among the headlines and YouTube titles that appear quickly:
Lucas Glover and the worst point of all time
“Is this legal?” Watch Big Winner Pit Webby Bot
Lucas Glover’s horrific nightmare messing with his two-stroke fuel explained
We could go on, but you get the grim picture. Short putts were a problem for the 2009 US Open champion.
“Ten years of just legitimate fighting,” Glover said Thursday at the Barbasol Championships in Kentucky. Note the Just. It was as if Glover was giving himself an extra beat gathering steel to utter it The ugliest four-letter word in golf.
Glover was just 29 when he broke out at the 2009 US Open, on a rain-slicked Bethpage Black course. Few saw him coming that week. He has only one win on the PGA Tour and was the 71st-ranked player in the world, having missed the cut in his previous three US Open appearances. But when he parried three feet into the 72nd hole during Monday’s finale, he won by two over Phil Mickelson, David Duvall and Ricky Barnes.
Three feet, three Schmuter, right? any, not so much for Glover in the years that followed. In 2011, he captured his third career tour title, at the Wells Fargo Championship. But then he suffered a 10-year drought to no results, which twice required him to regain his status with what was then the Web.com Tour. When players struggle, it’s often more than just a single part of their game that’s holding them back, but in Glover’s case, his posture was undoubtedly the primary culprit. Since 2012, he has only once finished in the top 100 in strokes earned: placing (2019, 53rd) and eight times outside the top 150.
The stats at close range — aka yip range — are even more disappointing. Take the last three years. In the 2020-21 season, Glover missed 24 shots from 3-foot-in (863-for-887), a miss rate of 2.71% that ranks 196th in the round. To put that number into perspective, he didn’t miss 20 players any sets from this range. In 2021-22, he missed 27 shorts (193rd overall), and this season he’s already missed 26.
Even when Glover finally ended a 10-year, two-month winless streak, at the 2021 John Deere Classic, his situation wasn’t always stellar. When he missed a number of potential batters in the second round on the TPC Deere Run, CBS sports analyst Colt Knost said on the telecast: “Most people pick up runs from the length he missed this week.”
To Glover’s credit, he never denied his suffering. He has been outspoken about how tigers tainted his game and how he tried to treat it (like a disease that can’t be cured, you can’t completely eradicate them). He had closed his eyes closed. He’s tried to reconnect stroke (and brain) with “high-pressure” placement workouts; He has a “checkpoint” system with his caddy, Tommy Lamb. “If there’s something to try, I’m sure I’ve tried it,” Glover said after his win over Derry.
His latest experimental elixir: a new paddle.
Two weeks ago, at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Glover added a broomstick beater to his bag, a LAB Mezz.1 Max with a hammer head that looks like something you could open a beer bottle with.
The results were immediate: After missing the cut in two of his previous three starts, Glover was tied for fourth at Detroit. A week later, he was back in John Deere, tied for sixth. And this week, in Barbasol? He shot an opening inning of 63 on Thursday to take a one-stroke lead. As of this writing, he’s under 11 for the week, co-driving two with Adam Long. Glover’s stats weren’t quite breathtaking, but by his standards, very encouraging. In the first round on the greens, he had a . 188 hits hitting field.
After his run on Thursday, Glover was asked if his new flat would make the difference.
“Yeah, that’s definitely the root of it,” he said. “I just got the confidence to shoot and make some of those mid-range shots and very comfortable on the short putts again.
“I got to a point with the situation, I needed a whole new way — a whole new brain function, a whole new way. … I had two weeks off before Memorial and I just ordered [a new putter] And I taught myself how to use it and I was kind of committed to that.” He added, “It was fun teaching myself something in the game that I had been doing for 40 years.”
It’s a very different stroke than Glover, who spent nearly 20 years of his tour career with a traditional putter. His left hand holds the top of the club handle, away from his chest, and his right hand rests about 18 inches below in a “claw” position.
“The whole new motor skill was the drive and was the root of that confidence,” he said. “It works. I’ve gone back and forth through so many different kinds of rackets and methods to where I know these don’t work, so that’s where I’m at. It’s revived a lot of men’s jobs and for the same reasons, whether they planned it that way or not.” … when you’ve struggled as long as I’ve had, or I’ve suffered, that may just happen to be the answer.”
It may last long.