Lucas Glover’s emotional win at the 2023 Wyndham Championship was about more than either the trophy or even the $1.36million prize.
The 45-year-old had endured a ten-year battle with such a bad case of ‘yips’ that it would send shivers down the spine of any golfer.
Lucas Glover overcame 10 years of the yipsCredit: Getty
Glover had been haunted by the yips, a psychological condition that causes involuntary wrist spasms when golf stars are trying to putt.
“You don’t have much control over your hands, don’t have much control over your stroke,” Glover told CNN Sport.
“The closer you get to the hole, the worse it becomes.”
The sudden impediment, which can also affect elite athletes across other sports, was given its name by Tommy Armour in the 1920s.
As such, the yips are most commonly associated with golf, with the tremors often crippling the swing of the game’s biggest stars.
None more so than Glover, who was the world’s 15th best-ranked golfer after his crowning glory as US Open champion in 2009.
However, six years later, the American had free-falled to world No.634 after suffering from a horror case of the yips.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. I four-putted the fifth hole at Colonial Country Club probably about 12 years ago now,” Glover told the ‘Stepping Into the Fire’ YouTube channel in March.
“I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, it just happened. Looking back on it now, 12 or 13 years later, there are a lot of change going on in my life. A lot of things going on. Some positive, but some which required more responsibility, like getting married and getting ready to have a 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥.
“All of a sudden, I wasn’t the only person I was responsible for. There is a lot of reflection in that. After that incident at Colonial, I just remember thinking, ‘When is that going to happen again?’, ‘Is it going to happen again?’, ‘What do I do if it happens again?’
The yips crippled Glover’s puttingCredit: Getty
“The what ifs, the unsure and just the uncertainty, not knowing what had happened, not knowing if it would happen again.
“All of those things. All of a sudden, it started recurring more and developed into a full case of what we call the yips.
“I remember saying to my wife after my round, after, of course, now looking back on it, the worst thing I could have done was go on the putting green for an hour and then get in the car and leave, and she said, ‘What happened there?’
“I said I don’t know. It was the first time in my career on the golf course that I could say I didn’t know.
“She said, explain that, how do you not know, you have been doing this your whole life? I said I could not feel my hands, and I felt like I had zero control of the putter. I would relate it to a panic attack.
“I lost all faculties. I lost all motor s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁s. As an athlete and as a golfer, our touch and our feel are our bread and butter and all of a sudden, I didn’t even feel like my hands were attached to the club.
“I hit this putt, and it was literally like, ‘What was that?'”
The involuntary wrist spasms plagued Glover no matter what he triedCredit: GettyHow did Glover get rid of the yips?
Over the next decade, Glover experimented with different methods to try and banish the yips, including putting with his eyes closed.
During the 2020/21 season, he missed 24 putts from 3 feet, 27 shorties the following year, and was up to 26 misses from short range coming into the 2023 Wyndham Championship.
Support finally arrived in the form of former Navy SEAL Jason Kuhn, who had helped MLB pitcher Tyler Matzek conquer a similar yips issue to win a World Series with the Atlanta Braves in 2021.
Their work together also brought a change of equipment, with Glover adding a long, broom-style putter to his bag, an L.A.B. Mezz.1 Max with a mallet head, as well as a new mindset.
“He walked me through a process about how to attack it instead of being scared of it,” Glover added.
He finally banished his demons to win the Wyndham ChampionshipCredit: Getty
Glover finished with a 72-hole total of 20-under 260 in 2023Credit: Getty
“It freed my brain, my mind and my stroke up … it’s actually become fun again to go practice, to go play, to actually putt instead of being fearful. It’s been a life-changer for me so far.
“I never lost too much faith and always thought if I could just figure out a way to beat this putting thing that I’d be back where I could be.”
“I just tried the long putter first,” Glover added, via USA Today. “I got to a point with putting, I needed a whole new – basically a whole new brain function, a whole new method. … I had two weeks off before Memorial and just ordered [a new putter] and taught myself how to use it and been kind of sticking to that.”
The results were instantaneous, with Glover bouncing back from missing the cut at five of his first six PGA Tour events to open 2023.
Glover’s new putter ended his lengthy drought and turned his career back aroundCredit: Getty
That August, he earned his fifth career PGA Tour title to win the Wyndham Championship after closing with a 2-under 68.
Glover built on his success at Sedgefield Country Club to clinch back-to-back victories at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
“Completely new motor s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 has been the trigger and has been the root of this confidence,” he said. “It’s working.
“And I’ve gone back and forth through many different types of putters and styles to where I know that those don’t work, so this is where I’m at.
“And it’s resurrected a lot of guys’ careers, and for the same reasons, whether they planned it that way or not. … When you struggle as long as I have, or had, it just happened to be what happened to be the answer.”
