Planet Golf — 16 May 2018 by GW staff and news services
Golf Bag: Glover’s wife ‘gone crazy’

MIAMI — Krista Glover, who was arrested and charged with domestic battery and resisting arrest without violence on Saturday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., is not permitted to have any contact with her husband, PGA Tour player Lucas Glover, or to be within 500 feet of the couple’s South Florida home.

The order was issued on Monday following Krista Glover’s arrest, which stemmed from an altercation with her husband and his mother, Hersey.

Officials in St. John’s County also released the 911 call made by Krista Glover that led to her arrest. When deputies called back, Lucas Glover answered.

“Yeah, hi, I think we got our lines crossed here. This is the husband, the sane one of the bunch,” Glover said in a calm voice. “My wife has called you . … Now she’s trying to blame it on my mother, which is not the case at all. … My wife has gone crazy.”

According to the arrest report, Glover told deputies that his wife began berating him for playing poorly at The Players, where he missed the secondary cut on Saturday. Glover also said Krista had been drinking throughout the day.

In the initial 911 call, Krista Glover said she had been attacked by her mother-in-law, who had locked herself in her room. When asked how she was attacked, Glover’s wife hung up and Glover answered when 911 called back.

Lucas Glover told the 911 operator that there was no need for a rescue squad to come to the rental house where they were staying, and when asked if the operator could speak with Krista he responded: “No, you cannot. She’s in the house with my daughter. And when deputies get here, they need to talk to the male – that would be me – because these other two are out of their heads at the moment.”

Glover also told the 911 operator: “Well, [Krista is] going to lie to you. That’s what I’m telling you. That’s why I answered the phone. She’s telling lies.”

According to the arrest report, both Lucas Glover and his mother had injuries. Glover said his wife began the altercation when he was on the back porch and then began attacking his mother when she tried to intervene.

A pre-trial hearing for Krista Glover has been set for June 22. She has pleaded not guilty to both charges.

Doug Ford, oldest Masters winner, dies

It had been an awful day, so far as Bob Goalby was concerned, so he took it out on the doors, the walls, the medicine cabinet. Anything that wouldn’t hit back was a target.

“I was angry, so I was slamming everything,” said Goalby, whose first-round 75 at the 1958 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach left him well off the lead. There was a lot of golf to be played, but he was a 29-year-old PGA TOUR rookie – and a rather precocious one, at that.

“I never paid attention to Doug (Ford), who I was rooming with. He had played earlier, and he just sat there watching me make an ass of myself. Finally, he looked at me and said, ‘Who do you think you are that you don’t think you can shoot 75?’ ”

Then 35, Ford was a PGA TOUR veteran who had already won the 1955 PGA Championship and 1957 Masters, but these were the days when money was tight, and roommates a necessity.

“We went out to eat that night and finally I said, ‘Doug, what did you shoot?’ He said, ’77,’ and so I felt even worse. Here I was, acting like a jerk having shot 75. But that’s the way Doug was. He was always there for the guys who needed a little help.”

The story personified Ford, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame who died Monday evening at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He was 95 and to former “touring professionals” of the 1960s, Ford will always be remembered for the roles he played in forming the PGA TOUR as we know it and later the PGA TOUR Champions.

“We cherish the rich history of our PGA TOUR, of which Doug Ford was an integral part,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan in a statement. “In an era when giants of the game were building the PGA TOUR, Doug achieved remarkable success and never lost his unmatched love of the game. All of us owe a debt of gratitude to this great player.”

Added former PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem: “Doug Ford was a gifted athlete who chose golf as his sport. It was my privilege to be in attendance and spend considerable time with him in 2011 when the World Golf Hall of Fame inducted him. His PGA Championship and Masters wins are a testament to the kind of player and competitor he was. Doug was a great champion and today we celebrate his life.”

A winner of 19 PGA TOUR tournaments, “Doug was under-appreciated, perhaps, but not by those of us who played against him,” said Goalby.

Ford won his PGA TOUR tournaments in a 12-year period (1952-63) when fame was difficult to come by. “But it didn’t matter,” said Goalby, “because Doug just loved to play. I think he played more golf than anyone. He’d leave a tournament on Sunday night, go home and play in a pro-am, then get to the next tournament to start practicing by Tuesday. I mean, he was always playing golf.”

To Goalby’s point, from 1950 to 1963, Ford played in 429 tournaments, an average of nearly 31 per season. When in 2011 Ford was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Goalby enthusiastically accepted the offer to introduce him.

“He was a great competitor, one of the toughest I ever played with,” Goalby said at the ceremony. “Sam (Snead) would call him Otis. I said, ‘What are you calling him Otis for?’ and Sam said, ‘because he’s like the Otis elevator, he’s up and down at every green.’ ”

If Snead’s assessment was true, Ford said it was owed to the way he spent much of his childhood in Manhattan where he acknowledged that he got his education in pool halls and ran with wannabe mobsters. “You had to be street smart,” he told Golf Digest’s Guy Yocom in 2007. “In that neighborhood, to survive you had to have guts.”

Born Douglas Michael Fortunato on August 6, 1922, in West Hartford, Connecticut, Ford grew up in Manhattan where his father, Mike, a golf professional, operated a nearby indoor driving range. Mike and his three brothers – Frank, Jack and Joe, all of them golfers – finally changed the family name, reasoning that most jobs in golf were going to Scottish and British immigrants. “Ford” sounded better than “Fortunato.” They weren’t alone, either; Gene Sarazen had been born “Saraceni.”

So different, these days. For proof, consider that Ford – who considered a professional baseball career before choosing golf – was like a lot of young men of the World War II era and put military service first. After a stint with the Coast Guard Air Division, Ford returned to playing competitive golf, but didn’t decide to turn pro until 1949, when he was 26.

Why the delay? Ford said it was because he made a better living by playing money games. “In fact, he told me that (former USGA Executive Director) Joe Dey walked up to him at a tournament and said, ‘We know you play for money, so you can’t enter as an amateur,’ ” said grandson Scott Ford, a teaching professional on Long Island. “My grandfather told me that’s pretty much the day he decided he was a professional golfer.”

It wasn’t until his third PGA TOUR season, 1952, that Ford broke through for a win, one that came in a most unusual way. At the Jacksonville Open, Ford defeated Snead in a playoff – without hitting a shot. Instead, Snead forfeited. Seems Snead had hit it out-of-bounds in Round 2, only a generous official told him that because players hadn’t known that the white stakes had been moved, he didn’t have to take the penalty. Reportedly, some competitors were upset, so Snead, after finishing tied with Ford, refused to take part in the playoff. “I want to be fair about it. I don’t want anyone to think I took advantage of the ruling,” said Snead.

With that, Ford accepted the $2,000 first-place prize and was off on a career that saw him win at least once each season from 1952 to 1963, save for 1956.

Most memorable, of course, were his major championships, the first of which came by a 4 and 3 decision over Cary Middlecoff in the 36-hole, match-play final of the 1955 PGA Championship at Meadowbrook CC in Northville, Michigan. Renowned as a fast player, Ford later talked about his strategy against the notoriously slow Middlecoff.

“The secret to my winning was a chair. I had my son (Doug Ford Jr.) carry a chair for me to sit in when it was Doc’s turn to play,” said Ford. “That chair saved my legs. You couldn’t rush Doc. But I didn’t care. I just sat in that chair.”

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