“We’re in my truck, just talking,” coach Larry Penley said, recalling one of Lucas Glover’s official visits to Clemson. A “recruiting” trip – wink, wink – because asking Glover if he wanted to go to Clemson was like asking Clark Kent if he needed a phone booth when he saw a burning skyscraper.
The youngster’s hero, grandfather Dick Hendley, was a Clemson football legend, so of course Lucas wanted to be a Tiger, too.
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“Lucas reaches over to fiddle with the radio,” Penley said, “and he finds music he likes. Metallica. So he turned it up as we drove around campus.”
And the next week? “This time I get in his car,” Penley said. “He has classical music playing.”
Several years later, in the days following a victory that would change his life forever, Glover was asked what music soothed his soul. His answer was definitive.
“Sinatra. The man was a crooner.”
Which says what about Glover?
“There are no stereotypes with Lucas. No put-ons. He’s real genuine,” Penley said.
A family theme
There was the recipe for a sour life – a father walking out – only Glover was blessed. A mother, Hershey, with impeccable strength and her second husband, Jimmy Glover, who showered his love. Grandparents with an uncanny sense of devotion. Five uncles. And a most special gift, an extended family through a student-teacher relationship with the late Dick Harmon.
“A great kid who has turned into a great man,” Nancy Harmon said. “It sounds weird to say ‘man,’ because I still feel like he’s one of the kids.”
Dick and Nancy Harmon raised two daughters and two sons at their home in Houston, but given the number of times Glover flew in from South Carolina for lessons, you can say they had five children.
“He became part of the family,” Chris Harmon said.
“What got me is how close they were,” said Dick’s youngest brother, Billy. “What Dick did with Lucas struck me as an extension of what our dad (1948 Masters champion Claude Harmon, arguably one of the game’s greatest teachers) did for years with Dave Marr. A father figure.”
Life’s lessons first, golf instruction second.
A loyal sidekick
Caddie Don Cooper had never met Glover, a fellow South Carolinian, until that Nationwide Tour round in Omaha, Neb.
“Champions Run, second hole, par 5, and my man (a former Nationwide player) asked what he should do,” Cooper said. “I told him, ‘If you were a grown man you’d hit driver down the left, but you’ll probably hit 4-iron down the right.’ ”
Cooper doesn’t recall what his player’s response was, only that he hit safely down the right. But the caddie vividly remembers what the other player in the group did.
“Lucas looked at me, stunned, and sort of laughed.”
After which?
“Lucas took driver down the left and made eagle. Later, he said if I ever needed a job, give him a call.”
Of course, the call eventually was made and through a full Nationwide Tour season, a pressure-packed PGA Tour Q-School and six full campaigns in golf’s big leagues, they’ve remained in tandem.
“We think alike,” Cooper said. “He plays aggressively and he gets pissed off because he cares
so much; he has such high expectations. My job is to tell him it’s OK to be like that, but we’ve learned together that at some point you have to let it go.”
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Hometown setting
Jennifer Smith was 16 when introduced to Glover, who was a year older. Tops on the list of things they shared was a passion for Greenville, S.C.
“I’ve been to a lot of places where I could live,” Jennifer said. “But I love where we are.”
High-school sweethearts turned college sweethearts, both Clemson graduates. Married in fall 2005, Lucas and Jennifer settled into a home, though given the rigors of the PGA Tour lifestyle, they never spent long stretches there. Until last year, that is. Disgusted with his play and a season in which he would finish 105th on the money list, Glover put away his clubs in early September.
“Just didn’t want to play,” Glover said.
“Our house was under construction, so we lived in the mess for months,” Jennifer said. “It was kind of fun. We ate out a lot, did day trips, spent a lot of nights with wine on the porch.”
Notorious for his quick pace and being unable to sit still, Lucas Glover stunned his wife when he did just that for months: He stayed put. His circle of confidants – agent Mac Barnhardt, swing coach Mike Taylor, sports psychologist Morris Pickens – supported him.
“I think they more or less told him that you don’t want to be 40 years old trying to figure it out,” Jennifer said. “So figure it out now.”
His story reaches a climax
Rejuvenated, Glover began 2009 by shooting in the 60s in 10 of his first 13 rounds. Three solid finishes (T-19, T-42, T-3) got things going, and the year continued on the upswing – a T-11 at Bay Hill, a T-19 in New Orleans, then a T-2 at Quail Hollow, where a chance to win was squandered with a bogey at the 71st hole.
“I wasn’t sure how he’d react that day,” Jennifer said. “But he was OK. He handled it pretty well. He told me, ‘This will help me down the road.’ ”
A month later, Glover, at a U.S. Open qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, put up a sizzling 63 in his first 18.
“He sent me a text on the way to the afternoon round,” Barnhardt said. “I told him that I hope things go better in the afternoon.”
Glover’s response: “It probably would.”
Humor had never been a problem, but people around him finally could see the confidence coming through. So, too, was patience. When he realized that weather woes would preclude him from playing his opening round Thursday at the U.S. Open, Glover merely shrugged.
“Well, let’s eat,” Glover told Barnhardt. “It’s going to be a long week.”
When he double-bogeyed the first hole the next day, Glover didn’t hang his head. “It’s going to be a grind,” he told Cooper, his caddie. But exactly how much of one, he couldn’t have imagined: 31 holes Friday, just five Saturday, 19 Sunday, then 17 Monday.
“There was no normalcy to it,” Glover said. “We were playing until 8:30, having dinner at 9:30. You just never felt you had any rhythm.”
But what he did have was a chance to win late in the final round on Monday when he split the fairway at the par-4 16th, then from 173 yards drilled an 8-iron to 5 feet. As Phil Mickelson and David Duval, the dueling feel-good stories, each bogeyed the par-3 17th, Glover made his birdie putt to secure his two-stroke victory and the last drops of moisture came down on Bethpage.
They were tears from Long Island to Greenville to Houston to heaven.
Enter the celebration
Monica Kendrick, general manager of the Thornblade Club in Greer, S.C., suggested a parade that would empty out into Fluor Field, home of the Greenville Drive, a Red Sox minor-league team.
“Wasn’t super thrilled with the idea, to be honest with you,” Glover said.
“It took some serious convincing,” Jennifer said. “We couldn’t believe who would come. We thought there’d be crickets in the stands.”
Instead, half of Greenville seemingly showed up. Jennifer wanted others, too, so she worked with Kendrick to bring in Nancy Harmon and her sons, Ricky and Chris, as well as Dick’s brothers, Billy and Craig. They surprised Glover as they walked in from center field.
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“We looked at each other and agreed it was one of the coolest, most emotional things we had ever done,” Ricky Harmon said.
Wild, all of it, and even as Jennifer swelled with pride, there was a sense of amazement.
“I mean, all this, and he’s just Lucas.”
Quick cut-away to Bermuda
His U.S. Open victory afforded Glover plenty of perks. Overseas money-grabs he turned down. “I’m sorry I’m going to cost you some money,” he told Barnhardt, “but it’s Clemson football season.”
The spot in the annual PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda? Glover was OK with that, on one condition: He would bring more than 20 people with him, from his parents and Jennifer’s parents to those who work at Barnhardt’s Island Golf Group in Sea Island, Ga., and their families.
“The only thing bigger than his hands is his heart,” Barnhardt said.
“Lucas felt these were the people who make it possible for him to have what he has,” Jennifer said.
Roll the credits
The deliveries from Barnes & Noble come every couple of weeks, and books are piled everywhere.
“I guess,” Jennifer laughs, “he could have worse habits.”
Reading is that slice of Glover that says more about him than his golf. Ditto the crossword puzzles, which he loves to do quickly. His penchant for Sinatra? He credits Jennifer, but she suggests it’s yet another Dick Harmon influence.
“That man meant an awful lot to Lucas,” Jennifer said.
Taylor watches over what Dick Harmon molded and never feels as if there is work to be done with Glover’s swing. “Great hands, great timing, but what we do is constantly talk about patience and getting in a good mindset,” Taylor said.
Years earlier, similar talks were between college teammates, good friends and competitive young men.
“We both pushed each other, and I believe we made each other better,” John Engler said. Once a brilliant talent, Engler had his golf career derailed by a serious foot injury in a car accident. What remains is a passionate friendship.
“Nothing has changed with Lucas,” Engler said. “He’s a man of few words, but when he speaks, you need to listen.”
One day he didn’t speak; he merely acted. It was a time to hit balls, to practice, to work, so when Engler and another Clemson teammate, Jonathan Byrd, tossed around a football, Glover glared. The ball bounded toward him, so he took it and rifled it in a tight spiral. Legend has it that it went 50 yards.
“Closer to 75,” Penley said.
“We looked at each other and said, ‘What in the world just happened?’ ” Engler said. “A couple of the guys yelled, ‘Do it again, Lucas. Do it again.’ So, he got the football back and did it again.”
And then?
Well, Glover figured the message had been delivered. So he tugged down the hat, went back to work, and golf balls soon filled the South Carolina air.
“There’s just no BS with Lucas,” Ricky Harmon said.
“Never has been,” Penley said.
Glover, 30, simply won’t allow it.
“It’s easier to be me,” he said. “No point in acting or doing it any other way.”
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