Lucas Glover took an in-round protest to an unusual place on Sunday at the PGA Tour's 3M Open: he pulled off his FootJoy shoes on the green and walked to his ball in his socks. The 45-year-old did it during the final round at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota, making a point about Aimpoint while still in the middle of his round.
Glover has never hidden his dislike for the system, a feel-based putting method used to judge break. He has said it slows play and sends too many footsteps around the hole, and he made that frustration visible after rolling in a 10-foot birdie putt on the 10th to get to 6-under par for the tournament. “I wasn’t going to take it anymore,” Glover said.
The protest came with Max Greyserman alongside him in the final round, which gave the moment an audience inside the round itself rather than in a post-round gripe. Glover bent down, removed his shoes, and went to retrieve the ball in socks before putting the shoes back on and walking off the green. Then the round turned sharply: on the next hole, he made a triple bogey.
The sequence captured both the force and the limits of golf protests. Glover got the act he wanted onto a live PGA Tour broadcast, but the scorecard did not soften for the statement. For a player who won the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black and now has a larger role in the sport after joining the Tour Player Advisory Council and being named PAC Chairman earlier this season, the message was as direct as the footwear choice.
That larger role only adds weight to what comes next. Beginning next season, Glover will join the Tour's board as a player director, replacing Adam Scott, putting a long-time critic of Aimpoint in a position where his complaints may carry beyond one green in Minnesota.
