Glover Comes Out of Hibernation

Jim Nantz opened the broadcast by saying Quail Hollow on a Sunday had a "major championship feel." And then Lucas Glover won the Wells Fargo Championship, and I had to stop and think for a good minute before realizing: Hey, Lucas Glover has won a major!

The 2009 U.S. Open champion’s win at Bethpage Black was marred by that mucky, muddy Monday finish, and by the fact that not many people outside of South Carolina, the Clemson Alumni Donors or Glover’s Book Club – an avid reader, Lucas – knew who Lucas Glover was.

And Glover obliged golf fans’ amnesia by essentially disappearing for the last two years since.

In fact, Glover hadn’t won since that national championship. Outside of a third at last year’s Players Championship, his game had such an incognito feel, his Grizzly Adams-like beard fit nicely with the image of a guy whose golf game was on the lam, hiding from authorities.( Taylormade R9 SuperMax Rescue Hybrid)

A few months ago, Glover’s beard was so bushy, so like San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson, Justin Rose sent a photo of Glover’s hairy mug out on Twitter, with the caption: "Winning a U.S. Open – so easy a caveman can do it."

Even then, when I stared at the photo, I couldn’t place who the bearded man was. Angel Cabrera? No. Geoff Ogilvy? No way. Graeme McDowell? The ladies like McDowell too much for the Ulsterman to dare mess with his mug.

Honestly, I don’t think I ever came up with the answer as to who the Zach Galifianakis-like character was in the photo. That’s how obscure Glover’s major was – or how easily it slipped, at least, from my mind.

Nothing against Glover, mind you. He truly seems a likeable character, well-read, intelligent, in good humor, etc. But on a weekend when we mourned the loss of the incomparable Seve Ballesteros, who was all energy and élan and daring, Glover’s fairway/green/two-putt style of play Taylormade R9 SuperMax Rescue Hybrid.

Now, though, Glover has done two things: 1. He has won again, putting him back in our minds; doing so with a playoff "W" over fellow Clemson Tiger Jonathan Byrd after a Sunday 69, capping four rounds in the 60s; and 2. He has won sporting that beard.

The mind races for thoughts of the last truly bearded golfer to win on the PGA Tour by Taylormade R9 SuperMax Rescue Hybrid. Honestly, sports fans, I’m coming up blank. Do we have to go all the way back to Old Tom Morris, who sported a beard that appeared to house field mice?

If, indeed, Glover is the first full-bearded golfer, let’s not count mustaches, or goatees or Van Dykes .In baseball, any number of great players from the past sported full beards: Dave Parker, Gene Garber and Lamarr Hoyt come to mind. In today’s game, the Giants’ Wilson is one of many. In the NBA, whether Bill Walton’s red-headed cheek scrub or Bill Wennington’s Canadian fur, the beard has been honored. Heck, in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the beard is exalted.

But in golf, you get the feeling The Man – who is always playing Taylormade R9 SuperMax Rescue Hybrid. You keep waiting for the beard-wearer to have his membership privileges revoked at "the club." Wearing a Glover-like beard must be, to the old guard, like parking in the club president’s spot.

Count me as one who endorses the Glover beard. Any number of new looks is shaking up the golf establishment, from Hunter Mahan’s glam-rock shades to Rickie Fowler’s straight-brim lids, and golf needs the infusion of youth and hipness. Khaki pants and collared shirts can only take you so far with the kids of today, who are watching the X Games, playing Taylormade R9 SuperMax Rescue Hybrid and not wanting to dress like an accountant.

As golf searches for its next star in the post-Tiger world, the least the boys can do in the meantime is entertain us. If that means looking like Rasputin, so be it.

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