Ryder Cup: Lucas Glover makes strong case for Team USA following win

Lucas Glover has garnered a whole lot of consideration over the previous two weeks.

He held off Russell Henley on the Wyndham Championship.

Then Glover defeated Patrick Cantlay in a playoff to win the FedEx St. Jude Championship, his second victory in as many weeks. At 43, he turned the third oldest to win back-to-back weeks on the PGA Tour within the final 40 years. Solely Vijah Singh at 45 (2008) and Hale Irwin at 45 (1990) have been older.

Now making the Ryder Cup crew is on Glover’s thoughts, an occasion he has by no means certified for.

“Proper now, sure,” Glover stated Sunday when requested if he deserves a spot on the American Ryder Cup crew. “I’m taking part in fairly good golf, and I feel I’d be fairly good within the crew room and be associate, so yeah, completely I’d.”

Photograph by Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR through Getty Photographs

The 2009 U.S. Open champion at the moment ranks sixteenth within the U.S. Ryder Cup standings.

The highest six gamers routinely qualify for the crew following the BMW Championship, scheduled for this week at Olympia Fields in Illinois.

Scottie Scheffler and Wyndham Clark have already completed so.

For the opposite spots on the crew, U.S. Captain Zach Johnson will spherical out the roster with six captain’s picks. These alternatives will come after the Tour Championship.

Maybe Glover will likely be a type of picks.

He definitely deserves consideration.

This season, Glover has recorded 5 top-tens, all of which have come because the starting of July.

His placing has been otherworldly, one thing that has plagued him all through his 20-year skilled profession.

“[For the last] 10 years up till this run, I’ve underachieved and knew it,” Glover admitted Sunday. “It was all due to placing. I gained the Deere [in 2021] as a result of I hit it within the grip a bunch for every week principally and snuck them in one way or the other.”

“It was simply believing in myself and being hard-headed and cussed sufficient not to surrender. I by no means actually considered it, actually. It was simply, I’ll determine it out, and it took one thing drastic to determine it out, nevertheless it’s labored, clearly.”

Glover poured in big-time putts down the stretch Sunday.

On the thirteenth, Glover rolled in a 20-footer for par, retaining him at 15-under par for the championship and in rivalry.

On the subsequent gap, the brutal par-3 14th, Glover pushed it proper and knocked his tee shot into the water.

From the drop zone, Glover hit it to 29 ft, and a double-bogey loomed whereas his possibilities of profitable the event dwindled.

Alas, Glover drained it for a bogey-four, thus retaining himself within the combine.

“Is there bogey? Nicely, that was one on this scenario,” Glover stated. “That gave me the flexibility to really take some momentum off of that inexperienced, making a putt like that, even for bogey.”

He rallied from there, making pars on the fifteenth, seventeenth, and 18th whereas making a birdie on the straightforward par-5 sixteenth to get again to 15-under.

Glover relied on his scrambling and placing to win in Memphis, two attributes wanted in a Ryder Cup.

He is perhaps a seasoned veteran, however Glover is taking part in the perfect golf of his life. Ought to he contend once more in Chicago after which on the Tour Championship in Atlanta, Johnson may have no selection however to pick out Glover over somebody like Justin Thomas, who sorely struggled all season.

Jack Milko is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By way of. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter @jack_milko for extra golf protection. Remember to try @_PlayingThrough too.