A Real Page Turner

Similar to the books he pores through on tour, Lucas Glover's path to the U.S. Open title includes plot twists, a compelling supporting cast and a protagonist who overcame challenges

bookworm: A voracious reader, Glover finished four books during his U.S. Open �victory at �Bethpage Black.

By Tim Rosaforte

Photo by Chris Stanford

August 10, 2009

As Lucas Glover chills out on his bed at the Turnberry Resort hotel on the eve of the British Open after five whirlwind weeks of nonstop golf, there are no signs the U.S. Open champion is stressed, burned out or otherwise changed. He is wearing black Nike shorts, a T-shirt from the Frederica GC on Sea Island and white gym socks. A pillow has matted his blond hair on one side; a can of Skoal and a Daniel Silva novel are nearby. "I like things organized," he says, sipping a bottle of Perrier from the mini-bar, explaining the stacks of hats, shirts and dip tins on the nightstand and windowsill. "But everything doesn't need to be at a right angle."

The deep Southern accent coming from a 6-foot-2 frame with a love of literature presents a 180-degree contradiction between what friends describe as Glover's redneck and well-read sides, but therein lies the beauty of the kid from Greenville, S.C., who never liked reading in college, but who always passed tests by cramming with crib notes. Glover is as articulate an interview as there is in golf, with a sense not only for reading the "Top Ten Things Lucas Glover Would Like To Say

After Winning The U.S. Open" on the "Late Show with

David Letterman," but also the best-seller list. He's not some one-dimensional jock from Clemson with a wad of chew in his mouth and an orange Tiger Paw painted on his cheek.

He killed time in Letterman's green room at the

Ed Sullivan Theater doing The New York Times crossword puzzle and chatting with retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. And when Golf World requested a list of his top five books, he submitted two classics, two thrillers and a non-fiction adventure.

There's no telling how many books Glover will read during the PGA Championship at Hazletine National GC in Chaska, Minn., but during the U.S. Open at Bethpage, Glover polished off four novels, including Clive Cussler's Sacred Stone. Two weeks later at the John Deere Classic, he picked up the latest releases by James Patterson and Greg Iles for the trip to Scotland. He also lists Silva, Stuart Woods and Lee Child as his favorite authors. Child's Jack Reacher is his favorite character. Glover read the first nine books in the series in two months. Instead of reading by Kindle, Glover prefers the "old-fashioned" paper-and-ink format.

Growing up, Glover hated reading "because I was told I had to do it," he said. "Any way around reading a book without reading a book is what every kid did." With that, Glover hands over Iles' The Devil's Punchbowl. The jacket cover teases it as an electrifying thriller that "reveals a world of depravity, sex, violence and the corruption of a Southern Town." Huck Finn, it isn't. Neither is Glover.

Glover with Woods during the second round of the AT&T National at Congressional CC in July. Photo: Darren Carroll

"It's not a hard read," he says. "It's not like reading Atlas Shrugged. I like books where the last line of every chapter is a cliffhanger, and the next thing you know, it's 3 a.m. A lot of it is like watching a seven-hour TV show."

The final round of the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black didn't take seven hours, but the twists and turns involving the heartbreaking collapses of Phil Mickelson and David Duval, the emergence Ricky Barnes, and ultimately Glover's victory, proved to be a good read.

Many angles of Glover's story were fleshed out, from his love of New York City (he honeymooned there) and the Yankees, to his relationship with his grandfather, Dick Hendley, the former Clemson football player who helped raise him. Wife Jennifer, a classmate at Wade Hampton High School, was in attendance along with his mother, Hershey, and stepfather, Jimmy Glover. (According to the Wilmington (N.C.) Star News, Glover's biological father, former major-league pitcher Ron Musselman, divorced Hershey in 1982. No one in the Glover family will discuss him.)