Right on the weekend that Simone Biles corroborated that his fears had evaporated and that the twisties, the disorder that produced the asynchrony between brain and body, had disappeared, Lucas Glover, another psychology patient, went to rediscover victory on the PGA Tour.
He was the undisputed winner of the Wyndham Championship, with a two-stroke lead over Russell Henley and Byeong Hun An, the fifth tournament in his career, including the outstanding US Open in 2009, the second in more than 12 years, a period that has been torture for the Greenville golfer , 43 years old.
For more than a decade, Glover has suffered from yips. This neurological dysfunction is to golf what twisties are to gymnastics. It is, in summary, a disobedience of the arms to the executed orders of the brain which translates into a blockage when kicking or continuous error in extremely simple actions such as making putts from a meter.
The American still remembers exactly the moment in which doubts entered: “It was on the fifth green of the first round of the Colonial in 2013, perhaps 2014 (contrasted by MARCA was this date). I made four putts like that without explanation. And from there the evils began. There have been rounds that were worse and others that were good… I don’t know what caused it, I don’t know what started it, but that was exactly the first time I felt it and it was something out of nowhere,” he explained to reporters. “What would have happened to me without this?” I have asked myself many times.
In the statistics basement
The statistics confirm Glover’s suffering: he is 141st in the PGA Tour putting stats; he was 111th in converting birdie opportunities until this win; the 182 in triparteo of the circuit or the 166 in the statistics of putts of less than a meter. In the last three years he has missed 77 blows from that distance where in a match play many times the rivals concede the blow.
The mishap has made him, as it did to the German legend Bernhard Langer, who now extends his successful career on the Champions Tour, for people over 50, where he is already the best in history, will try to kick anyway. Changed hands, the left arm locked -as they won the John Deere Classic in 2001-, the grip in a pincer… Even blind. Even sopes kick left-handed. “My problem above all was controlling the speed of the putt. I was unable to do it. In fact, I am surprised that with the last change the improvement has occurred so quickly. It has only been like this for three months.”
It was the first victory in front of his two children, which increased the happiness of the golfer who remembers those low moments. “My brain was on fire. It was frustrating to see everything go down the drain missing two-foot putts. Then Fax[Brad Faxon, a former Ryder Cup putting guru]suggested I try the long putter and I asked the Adam Scott’s rep, who’s the same height as me, one. I spent a couple of days in the garage, figured out how to get set. I took it to the practice green and spent about 10 days working on it. I took it to the Memorial and played well “My failures weren’t that horrible, they were just failures. It was a fun process to become an autodidact.”
