MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 When Lucas Glover removed his shoes to retrieve his ball from the hole in the final round of the 3M Open, TV commentators speculated it was in protest of the AimPoint green-reading system used by many PGA Tour players.<\/p>\n
Turns out, he went shoeless for another reason: to prevent his metal spikes from making marks on the greens following a complaint by a rules official.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlright, let\u2019s clear this up,\u201d Glover posted on Instagram Monday. \u201cFor 23 years on the PGA Tour I\u2019ve worn spikes. 23 years ago, most of us did. It hasn\u2019t been that long since we were NOT allowed to tap them down. Yesterday was the first time I\u2019ve ever had a complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glover\u2019s decision to remove his shoes came after he sank a birdie putt on the 10th Sunday at TPC Twin Cities. Once the ball rolled in, the 2009 US Open champion walked off the green, removed his shoes, and carried them to the hole to pull his ball out. <\/p>\n
Glover walked back off the green and put his shoes back on.<\/p>\n
Fellow golfer Michael Kim posted on social media that several players had complained to rules officials about spike marks on the bent grass greens, thinking it was Glover.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, it\u2019s not the officials place,\u201d Glover said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t breaking any rules. Secondly, there were people in the groups in front of me and behind me wearing metal spikes as well. The greens at 3M are bent grass, were soft, and appeared to have been watered a fair amount (because of the forecast I\u2019d imagine). I don\u2019t care what you wear on your feet, metal or soft spikes, in those conditions they are going to get beat up. I did my best around the hole to tap down my damage as I was leaving the area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glover repeatedly mentioned that PGA Tour rules now allow players to tamp down spike marks on the greens, including a mention about playing in the Rocket Classic in Detroit this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be wearing metal spikes, and the people playing behind me are still allowed to tap down the marks,\u201d Glover said. \u201cDid I mention that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 When Lucas Glover removed his shoes to retrieve his ball from the hole in the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[29975,336258,293,427,336256,308,336257,36303,6429,688,336255,79657,1079,99,26798,105040,24],"class_list":["post-790947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-3m-open","tag-blaine-minnesota","tag-color-image","tag-golf","tag-green-golf-course","tag-horizontal","tag-lining-up-sports-activity","tag-lucas-glover","tag-minnesota","tag-photography","tag-putting-golf","tag-round-three","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tpc-twin-cities","tag-us-pga-tour","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}