Good as gold

BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

BRISTOL, Va. – Shannon Gay possesses the most popular shoes at the Virginian Golf Club, but she never wears them.

They’re much too big for her feet, and someone has scribbled on them in red ink. Gay hardly every takes them out of her garage, but when she brings them to the club, droves of fellow golfers can’t pass her without comment. Her husband wants to sell them on eBay, but the West Virginia native won’t hear of it.

After all, how many golf nuts can boast the shoes of a U.S. Open champion? More precisely, the shoes of 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover?

When Glover attended the 2008 Bristol Morning Rotary Golf Classic pro-am at the Virginian, he was an afterthought.

He had experienced success on the PGA Tour, finishing 2007 ranked 35th in the FedEx Cup standings. But 1997 PGA Championship winner Davis Love III and Brandt Snedeker, hot off his third-place finish at the 2008 Masters, were also in attendance, so Glover’s presence received little fanfare.

Gay, at least, wasn’t impressed.

“I had never heard of him before that tournament,” the Virginian member said.

Gay began the day by following Snedeker for five holes, but rain storms and chilly weather sent her home in search of warmer attire. When she returned to the course, she took up with Glover’s pairing.

“He was very nice, that’s why I stayed with him,” Gay said. “He was very personable. He was a real Southern guy. He talked about his wife. You could tell he was very much in love with his wife. They were remodeling their kitchen.”

Her experience meeting Glover differed greatly with an experience she had later: At a press event for the Tiger Woods-designed The Cliffs at High Carolina in Asheville, N.C., Gay had been completely ignored by the world’s No. 1 golfer. But in Bristol, Glover had helped Gay with her golf swing and talked openly about his childhood and his family.

After the Rotary tournament, Glover, Snedeker and Love departed quickly in order to catch their flight. But before he left, Glover removed his cleats, signed them in red ink and told Kenny Kerr, the club’s general manager, that maybe the shoes might catch a princely sum in the event’s charity auction.

“Since I followed him around all day, well, I wanted them,” said Gay, who paid $200 for her now-favorite golfer’s size-13.5 Nikes.

Although the shoes went into her garage, Gay’s support of Glover was always on full display. She followed his career on the Internet and TV. Glover helped her out with an impressive showing at the Quail Hollow Championship in early May.

“I was so excited, but he had a tough last day,” she said of Glover, who finished second at Quail Hollow.

But then he disappeared. Glover’s three tournaments following Quail Hollow resulted in a missed cut, a tie for 41st and a tie for 45th. By the time the U.S. Open rolled around, Glover’s No. 1 Southwest Virginia fan wasn’t expecting much from him.

Then he made the cut at a rain-soaked Bethpage Black. And then he made the final pairing in the third round (where Gay was happy to see him sporting a pair of same shoes she had in her garage). And when he made a par on the final hole to win, Gay, who was following his progress on her BlackBerry while driving to West Virginia, let out a shriek of joy.

“I was glad Tiger wasn’t even near contention,” Gay said. “Now I call Lucas my boy.”

And those shoes? Well, they’re still in the garage.

“But I talk about them a lot,” Gay said. “Everyone [at the Virginian] knows. Everyone was really excited. I called everybody.

“If our pro shop would like to display them, I would love to have them out somewhere. My husband always said we should put them on eBay if [Glover] wins anything. So my husband was really excited when he won. But I won’t give them up.”

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