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TOUR CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 20, 2019Lucas GloverAtlanta, Georgia THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Lucas Glover to the interview room at the 2019 TOUR Championship. Lucas, you locked up the No. 29 spot in the FedExCup standings. Talk about how you're feeling with it being your first time back since 2009? LUCAS GLOVER: Good, honestly. Excited, a little tired, but here we are. Yeah, all good things. THE MODERATOR: With that, we'll open it up for questions. Q. How aware were you on Sunday of what you needed to do to get here, and did that almost add to it that you were able to perform under the gun, if you did know? LUCAS GLOVER: Pretty aware. I had a feeling top ten would do it, but I didn't know that for sure. But with the start I got off to, the only reason I started looking at the board was to see what Justin was doing. Because I thought if he had a little setback or something, I might be closer than I thought. Obviously, he put it back in gear, and that ended that. Yeah, I just hit a bad shot on 17, regardless of what I needed, and then compounded with a tough lie two times, but I still felt like I was okay. Just breathe on 18 and felt pretty good about it. But I knew. And being in the position I was in, that was the pressure. I knew I'm going to win by that point. Q. Starting on Thursday, do you approach the week any differently because of the format? LUCAS GLOVER: This week? Q. Yeah, did you play any different Thursday? LUCAS GLOVER: No. I'm usually confused starting the round anyway, so it will be the same this week. But it will be fun. It will be interesting. You've got to make birdies regardless. I've just got to make ten more than usual, I guess. I don't know. Q. No more aggressive than usual? LUCAS GLOVER: No. If I can hit it at the hole, I do. If I can't, I won't. I don't know. Come Saturday, Sunday, it might change things, but I don't think Thursday is going to be that much different. Q. Lucas, Brandt said it was almost as if Thursday is the new moving day. Does that about sound right to you? LUCAS GLOVER: This Thursday? Q. Yeah, with the staggered start. LUCAS GLOVER: Yeah, I guess. I guess those of us starting down below got to -- I don't know. I'm not going to say play harder because we're going to all play hard. It's just -- I don't know. Should have played better earlier in the year, I guess. Q. And other question. Your journey here has been so cool. I was wondering how you process the fact that you're here, and Tiger and Shane, two major winners, are not. LUCAS GLOVER: I don't know. I think that might be a different conversation. I think a major is worth more than 600 points. It might be a different conversation that has anything to do with my journey, per se. Yeah, I just happened to play good more recently than them, I guess, which doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it. It's just the way it is. Q. Do you come in with a mindset at all that I can win this thing? LUCAS GLOVER: Well, yeah, I'm here. I'm not being a smart aleck, but any tournament I'm in, I'm required to think that way. It's part of my job. Q. This is the first tournament you've started ten shots down before -- LUCAS GLOVER: It's not that abnormal. I think he beat me by ten last week too, so just a carryover from last week. No, I mean, it's different and it's weird, but I had control over it. I could have played better earlier in the year or two days ago or whatever. You know, it is what it is. Nothing about points and staggered scoring is normal for us, but it's what we're doing, and it's what we need to do and it's what we're going to do Thursday. Q. Lucas, first year that they moved the schedule up. You're now playing in August versus September. Typically, Atlanta, about 4 degrees warmer, a lot more rain in August. You have an early morning tee time. Is that an advantage to you versus the afternoon rounds maybe stopping and starting with weather delays? LUCAS GLOVER: I wouldn't say early morning. I'm earlier than everybody else but at 11:45, so yeah, the heat's fine with me. I grew up two hours from here so I'm kind of used to it and expect it in August. Yeah, I would bet a lot of money we have a thunderstorm or two roll through just because of the time of year and humid and all that stuff. The hotter the better as far as I'm concerned. Q. Two things, Lucas. How far was that par putt on 18, and is it -- did it look as far as it was? LUCAS GLOVER: Yeah, probably 2, maybe just over 2 feet, and, yeah, it looked about 12 probably. It was one of those where you wish it was kind of downhill so you didn't have to make as big a stroke type thing, but it wasn't. Yeah, a lot going through my head there, and it was straight and just go make it. Easier said than done. Q. And then as it relates to your journey here, as it were, I'm pretty sure ten years ago you didn't think it would be this long to get back, but I'd be curious at what point this seemed to be the farthest away? LUCAS GLOVER: Probably the first time I went back and did the Web finals. '15, maybe. I don't know. That was a pretty bad year. I didn't do anything very well, and I wouldn't have made that two-footer then. I wouldn't have made the two-footer on the 1st hole then on Sunday. But that was about as low as it got, that first journey back to the -- I guess the Korn Ferry finals now. Last year, believe it or not, it didn't seem that far away. I did those by choice, coming off the medical and this and that. I actually had already started seeing some improvement before I took off after the open last -- U.S. Open last year. Q. [Inaudible Question] LUCAS GLOVER: Everything. Everything. But just the putting style change was an immediate confidence boost. But, yeah, four years ago is probably as low as I can recall. Q. Tiger was asked the other day what his best shot of the year was, and he said Sunday tee shot on 17. Can you describe what that tee shot is like to play? LUCAS GLOVER: 17 at Medinah? Q. Sorry, Augusta National, Masters Sunday. LUCAS GLOVER: What that tee shot is like? Q. Yeah. LUCAS GLOVER: Hard now. I mean, the fairway, if you hit driver, it's 16, 17 yards wide, and if you don't hit it 320, the left side's blocked out, so it's really 12 yards wide, 13 yards wide. So, yeah, and with the pressure of the Masters on the line potentially for him at that time, that was a very critical shot, and I would agree with him. Best shot of the year for him to kind of ice it down. Yeah, all the new stands of trees on both sides make that a lot harder shot than it used to be obviously. Q. Lucas, talk about gaining confidence last year. How much does your work with Tony kind of factor into this? And when did you two guys start working together? LUCAS GLOVER: Three years ago, a little over three years ago, right after the British Open. Yeah, Tony was like a breath of fresh air. It was back to the fundamentals. First lesson we had, he goes, I don't really care what kind of shot you're hitting. If you're aimed way over there, you're not going to hit the shot you want to hit. I'm trying to hit a hook and aiming it left. It didn't make any sense. First 30 minutes I argued with him on where I was lined up. Anyway, he kind of made it fun. He started making it fun again. We laugh as much as we work and while we work, which has been refreshing because it got way too businesslike, way too serious for me, and that's not how I ever really approached it when I was playing my best. So that was good. Just as far as let's put the work in but make it fun and do some things that put a little joy back in the game, I guess you'd say, because I sucked it all out for a long time. Tony was good, and Tony's also put me in contact and now working with some people that have helped me a lot too, trainer and Kolby Tullier down at Joey D's place, and Greg Carton up in Boston, who's been a counselor type stuff. So got a pretty good team, and both of those guys were on Tony's recommendation. So Tony's been a big part of turning this thing around. Q. As one of the faster players in the game, what has it been like for you to see pace of play finally seemingly get attention front and center? LUCAS GLOVER: Well, it's been front and center in the locker room for years. This is my 16th year out here. We used to just bash each other in the locker room. Now everybody has a voice, right? Now everybody's got social media, and everybody can do it and this, that, and the other. But we as players have been saying it for a long, long time. It's only now -- this is my opinion, of course. It's only now that the public has a hold of it, and it's blown up on social media that, oh, now it's this huge issue. We're going to look at it. No, it's been a big issue for a long, long time. But there's more cameras, there's more phones, there's more this, there's more that, and it's now more in everybody's view. So it seems like a very reactive statement from the TOUR as opposed to trying to get out in front of it. We've known this for years, literally years, that it's a problem. So I don't know the answer. Usually when you're critical, it's something you have an answer, but I don't. Q. Just a quick follow to that. It feels like it almost took moving the discussion outside -- inside the room to outside where people -- where players were potentially shamed to create a more serious discussion. Is that fair? LUCAS GLOVER: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it's obviously been serious because we've just cut the cut. I don't know where I was for those meetings, but that was a shock. So for that to have been on the table, that just proves that we've known. And we've had MDF for how long? So that shows us that we've known. But, yeah, that's 100 percent fair. I mean, everybody's known for 20 years that it's slow and getting slower. So we're just now going to take a look at it? No, that's not right. We've been taking a look at it. We're just trying to cut players instead of enforcing the policy. Q. Lucas, just curious, in the ten years since your last start here, did you ever have an occasion to come to East Lake to play just for fun? LUCAS GLOVER: Unfortunately, no, I haven't, having moved in 2010 away from the area and further away in '14. So I haven't. I like this place. I haven't played it yet with the new 9s switched, so that will be interesting. I haven't. Not because I don't want to, but I've just never had it come up. Q. Do you feel like you're going to have to relearn the course to a certain degree? LUCAS GLOVER: I kind of went over it last night in my head, just trying to remember a few things. I definitely remember all the holes. So I played it enough growing up in amateur golf and college and a few times for some TOUR Championships. I remember most of it. Q. Do you play games at home often with like members? And what's your handicap as far as how many strokes you're giving guys on the 1st tee? LUCAS GLOVER: Yeah, I would say I play more with other friends and members than TOUR players even though, where I live, the rest of the TOUR does too. The guy I play with the most is a 4, and I give him 8. So whatever that comes to. What's that make me, plus 4? Q. It makes you a dropout. LUCAS GLOVER: Yeah, I guess so. Q. Do you ever give the professional strokes? LUCAS GLOVER: No, absolutely not. Q. Quick clarification, you've never played a U.S. Open or a PGA with anything but a two tee start, correct? Weekdays. LUCAS GLOVER: Correct. Q. If you had a pecking order, what's the best perk about being here? LUCAS GLOVER: The best perk? Q. What's the best part about being here in order? LUCAS GLOVER: The pace ought to be good. They've been saying field sizes are too big for years. No, I mean, I don't know. It kind of put a bow on the year. Kind of sit back and think, all right, I'm here. It must have been a pretty good year. Not as much as it was until 2006 when there weren't playoffs or there weren't -- you know, you could kind of sneak in via the playoffs, but you had to do some pretty good stuff to get here. So as far as reflecting back on it, your season, that's pretty good, but as far as perks and what you get to do and all that, I haven't been in a World Golf Championship in a long time. I haven't been to Augusta in a long time. My U.S. Open exemption was up this year. So I don't have to worry about that. So, yeah, just like years past, you play good, you get to go to some cool places. I mean, we're so spoiled, week in and week out, there's nothing here that's abnormal. We get a cool car and a nice place to stay and all that stuff, but it's just kind of down the road things that you get for qualifying here. THE MODERATOR: Thanks so much for your time, Lucas. Best of luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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