Lucas Glover slams PGA Tour’s Player Directors

You can add Lucas Glover to the list of golfers concerned about the direction the PGA Tour is heading in.

Speaking on his own SiriusXM radio show, the former US Open champion was scathing about the amount of power now wielded by the game’s top players, insisting that they are the wrong people to making decisions on the future of the sport.

Glover was reacting to news of Jimmy Dunne’s decision to resign from the PGA Tour board earlier this week.

Dunne stood down in frustration over a lack of “meaningful progress” in turning the framework agreement, unveiled to much fanfare and shock last June, into an actual deal between the tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

• Brandel Chamblee blasts “stupid” and “laughable” LIV Golf

• It’s official! Happy Gilmore 2 is happening!

Yesterday, Rory McIlroy described Dunne’s decision as “a huge loss” for the PGA Tour, a sentiment echoed by Glover.

“We (golfers) have no business having the majority (on the board),” he said. “Tour players play golf. Businessmen run business. They don’t tell us how to hit 7-irons. We shouldn’t be telling them how to run a business.

“We’re about to launch a huge, huge, huge enterprise and a for-profit company that all the players are going to own a part of, and we don’t have the smartest possible people there to help us guide us in the right direction. That’s scary.”

• Scottie Scheffler to be without regular caddie on Saturday

• Ryder Cup hero writes off Spieth’s PGA prospects

This isn’t the first time Glover has spoken up about the situation the tour finds itself in. Last August, for example, he described changes to the tour’s schedule as “silly” and “contrived”.

“I’m at a point in my career now where my future and my family’s future hinges on this, these decisions that are about to be made,” he said. “So that’s why I’ve decided in the last few months to start speaking up.

“But the Board situation and the way they’re going to reach these decisions now is backwards. It’s 100% backwards. A lot of my peers and a lot of other tour players aren’t going to be agree with me but the proof’s in the pudding. We had an opportunity to get this done and it didn’t get done.

“And now we’re losing the people that are the most effective and already had it done to be frank.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor