Lucas Glover vies for third straight at BMW Championship

 

[August 17, 2023]  Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy remain Nos. 1-3 in the FedEx Cup standings, and they're widely considered the three best players on the PGA Tour. But no golfer has been in hotter form than Lucas Glover.

The 43-year-old finds himself in the spotlight after winning back-to-back weeks to leap to the No. 4 spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs, which resume Thursday at the BMW Championship in the Chicago suburb of Olympia Fields, Ill.

"Obviously a pretty fun couple of weeks, not to put it too lightly," Glover said Tuesday. "Been a bit of a whirlwind, as well."

After outlasting a star-studded field at the FedEx St. Jude Championship and beating Patrick Cantlay in a playoff Sunday, Glover was able to catch his breath Monday while heavy rain at Olympia Fields Country Club kept players from seeing much of the golf course.

Glover's claim to fame was winning the 2009 U.S. Open, but for the better part of the past 10 years he battled the yips with his putter. He's fared much better in 2023 and won the Wyndham Championship two weeks ago to make the playoff field at the last possible moment.

Glover has a tall task ahead of him to keep his winning streak going. The last player to win three weeks in a row on the PGA Tour was Tiger Woods in 2006.

"I think it's just kind of the story of being stubborn the right way and persevering," Glover said. "... Gotten a lot of encouragement from the fans the last couple weeks and then the last couple days here. If it gives one person hope, then it makes me happy, too."

When Olympia Fields last hosted the BMW Championship in 2020, Rahm won a playoff against Dustin Johnson in stunning fashion. The Spaniard hit a 66 1/2-foot birdie putt that took a 90-degree right turn down a slope and tracked straight into the cup.

Rahm and Johnson shot 4-under 276 that week amid difficult scoring conditions.

"It's a great layout, a great test, especially last time getting to see it basically as a U.S. Open setup, right," Rahm said this week. "We don't usually get at this time of year events where 4 under goes into a playoff. That was unbelievable to see.

"It's going to be a little bit different because we're not going to get that. It's been wet and rainy, so we'll see how it plays. It's going to play a lot longer, let me tell you."

The top 30 in FedEx Cup points after this tournament will advance to the season-ending Tour Championship.

Jordan Spieth (No. 27), Sungjae Im of South Korea (No. 28) and Sam Burns (No. 30) are among the notable players teetering on the edge of the top 30. The first man out as of now is Sahith Theegala, while Englishmen Justin Rose (No. 32) and Matt Fitzpatrick (No. 40) and Japan's Hideki Matsuyama (No. 47) also have work to do to advance.

One subplot for the Americans in the field is the Ryder Cup. The BMW is the final chance for American players to earn qualifying points toward one of the six automatic berths onto the U.S. roster; Zach Johnson will then make six captain's picks to round out the team.

Scheffler and Wyndham Clark have already locked up two of the automatic spots.

"I think about the Ryder Cup every second I'm awake, basically," said Keegan Bradley, who enters the week No. 11 in the U.S. standings. "My biggest thing right now is trying not to think about it while I'm playing because it's important to me."

--Field Level Media

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