Lucas Glover captures golf’s Wyndham Championship, makes FedExCup play-offs
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Lucas Glover playing from the second tee during the final round of the Wyndham Championship.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NORTH CAROLINA – Lucas Glover waited out a weather delay, received a lucky bounce on the last hole and claimed his fifth career PGA Tour title by winning the Wyndham Championship on Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Glover followed a third-round 62 with a two-under 68 on Sunday to finish at 20-under 260, two strokes ahead of Russell Henley (69) and South Korean An Byeong-hun (67).
Billy Horschel (72), who shared the lead with Glover after three rounds, faded to fourth at 16 under.
Winning the PGA Tour’s regular-season finale launched Glover from 112th place in the FedExCup points standings to No. 49, qualifying him for the play-offs that begin on Thursday at the FedEx St Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee.
“Last time I played Memphis, I played very well, so excited to get back there,” Glover said. “Just let this soak in and get my body and my mind right and get back to work Tuesday or Wednesday.”
Inclement weather forced a delay that lasted two hours and three minutes, when the top four players had just four holes to play. Glover and Henley were then tied for the lead at 20 under, two strokes ahead of An.
Henley came out of the delay with a shot of momentum, making a two-putt birdie at the par-five 15th hole for the outright lead. He then missed the green at the par-three 16th and wound up finishing his round with three successive bogeys.
“Just never got comfortable (after the restart),” Henley said. “Felt a little jittery out there, just never got into a good sync with my swing, felt kind of rushed from the top of my swing. Just didn’t do a good job of handling the restart.”
Glover’s drive at the par-four 18th missed left but bounced off the side of a volunteer’s cart, preventing his ball from ending up with an even worse lie.
Knowing he had a two-shot lead, Glover laid up, reached the green in three strokes and rolled in an eight-foot par putt.
“To be honest, I’d have probably laid it up anyway,” Glover said with a laugh. “Just might have been a harder lay-up. But I didn’t know (about the cart bounce) officially – I thought somebody was joking when they said it.”
Glover, 43, recovered from a bogey on the opening hole and birdied the par-four fourth, eighth and 11th holes before making pars the rest of the way. The 2009 US Open champion last won on Tour at the 2021 John Deere Classic.
He said Sunday would have been his late grandfather’s 97th birthday and credited him for starting him playing golf.
“He was my mentor and my hero and all that stuff,” Glover said. “Tried not to think about it too much until the end there. I like to think I had a leg up on everybody today because of that.” REUTERS
