ORLANDO – Since the chairman of Augusta National has the State of the Masters press conference every year, the PGA Tour has a very small event, where the Tour Commissioner enters the press center and gives a report on all kinds of Tour business. Different commissioners, over the years. Deane Beman, Tim Finchem, Jay Monahan, as recently as last year. The commissioner, by charter and mission statement, has had one job above all others: to increase the playing opportunities of PGA Tour players, and to increase the pay days of the players. It worked well for a very long time, going back to the early 1970s. Those days are long gone.
Jay Monahan is in his swan song year as commissioner. The guy running the show now, who will headline Wednesday’s Players press conference, won’t be a commissioner at all. It will be Brian Rolapp, the first CEO of the Tour. He has not been charged with increasing player opportunities and player paydays. The ultimate goal of his career is to make the PGA Tour profitable. “The goal is not more change,” Rolapp said early last year. “The goal is radical change.”
Enter Lucas Glover, the newly elected chairman of the 16-member Tour Players Advisory Council. Next year, he will begin a four-year term on the PGA Tour Policy Board. He’s 46, a former US Open winner and the last man standing to fully defend the Tour’s values from its Beman era, Finchem era, Monahan era. Or, to put it another way, in its Tom Watson era, its Greg Norman era and its Tiger Woods era.
“My opinion is different,” Glover said Sunday afternoon. He signed his fourth-round card at Bay Hill – he finished 24th and earned $157,000 – and was speaking to four reporters. “The way I look at things is different, and my opinion is my own [decision-making] it’s about the game and not about the main story. And the answer to everything [can’t be] ‘Just give them money.’” Glover, who learned his golf under the watchful eye of his grandfather and various members of the Harmon family, abhors that approach to problem solving.
Glover, who defeated Adam Scott for the PAC chairmanship, isn’t all high and mighty about it. It’s not like you’re turning down the paydays that come with playing in Signature events. He is on the Atlanta TGL team, a golf entertainment complex made for indoor TV.
The player Glover reminds him a lot. . . Scottie Scheffler, and Glover talked about him Sunday afternoon.
“Scottie wants to beat everybody out,” Glover said. “That’s all he cares about, playing good golf and winning. And that’s how I was raised.”
In Glover’s account of his professional life, there are four major titles, the Players Championship was better in May because the course was firmer and faster and the Tour was better when the players helped each other on the course, ate dinner together and played cards at night. He said his teacher, Dick Harmon, approached him one The tour event in all their years together, and that was in “Moline.” Moline, Ill. You have to be old school to refer to John Deere, also known as the Quad Cities, as Moline. The only reason Harmon was there at all was to visit his brother Butch. The PGA Tour driving range, Glover said, is now all “orange boxes and protein shakes.”
“I can’t remember the last time I heard someone talk about a charity,” he said.
Glover doesn’t give too many names. He listens carefully and responds carefully.
It was a telling speech. The old outing was little more than a collection of local charity golf events.
“I hope we do the right thing with golf,” Glover said.
As Glover spoke, the image of the Claret Jug passed by him, in a protective case. Bay Hill offers a path to the British Open for one unseeded player. Glover has never played well in Opens, which is surprising, given the quality of his iron. Still, he went back every year he could.
“Check it out,” Glover said. An old golf cup. Scheffler’s name continued last year.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@golf.com
