CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Two days after his long-time friend Lucas Glover won the rain-soaked U.S. Open last June, tour player Charles Warren got an e-mail from the new national champion.
Glover had remained in New York, appearing on the David Letterman show and adjusting to his new celebrity.
The e-mail confirmed what Warren already knew -- being U.S. Open champion hadn't changed Glover. The message was about the annual December fundraiser Glover, Warren and others hold to benefit the Clemson golf team and junior golf in South Carolina.
"He sent an e-mail about all the things he'd thought about to bring home for the auction. It's crazy to think he'd take the time to type a two-page e-mail about how to raise money for charity," said Warren, a former NCAA champion at Clemson.
"It's an example of how he is and what makes him tick."
Glover, who finished second in the Quail Hollow Championship six weeks before his U.S. Open victory, has tried to remain much the same guy he's always been, growing up in Greenville, S.C., with a love of golf, his grandfather and Clemson football.
He's understated with a deep voice that drips with a soft Southern drawl. On the course, Glover tugs his cap so low he has to tip his head up to see a distant flagstick or a friend in the gallery.
When he holed the final putt to win the U.S. Open, Glover wasn't quite sure what to do because he's not one to pump his fist or point at himself. He just smiled, then said all the right things in his trophy acceptance speech.
Because he was raised in South Carolina and knows his college football, Glover has been occasionally miscast.
He appreciates the finer things about Southern culture -- leading the Clemson football team down the hill into Memorial Stadium last fall ranks alongside the Open among his biggest thrills -- but if you're riding with him, you'll probably hear Sinatra or the Beatles rather than country music.
He likes to visit New York City, not just because he won there but because of all it offers.
Glover, 30, works the USA Today crossword puzzle daily, knows his way around good bottles of wine and is always reading a book or two.
Before he stuffed an 8-iron shot six feet from the hole to essentially win the Open last June, his storyline through the rain-interrupted week centered on the fiction he was reading, as if it something novel for a professional golfer.
"It was something to talk about but there wasn't a lot going on," Glover said. "Very little golf and a lot of rain.
"But I do read a lot. A lot of guys do. You have to get away from it. You can't go home and think about what you just shot or what you're working on. You've got to get away or you'll drive yourself crazy. That's my escape."
Warren said Glover and Scott Verplank routinely text each other about the daily crossword puzzle. On the Monday that Glover won the U.S. Open, Warren said Verplank sent a message that evening asking the winner if he'd noticed the title of the daily puzzle.
It was "Majoring In."
Perfect for a guy whose career had been gradually building to a defining moment like the one at Bethpage. If Glover's victory was unexpected to the general public, it wasn't a great shock to the golf world. He had, however, won only once on the PGA Tour -- a 2005 victory in the Funai Classic at Disney World.
Glover had been good enough to make the 2007 Presidents Cup team a year after pressuring himself to make the 2006 Ryder Cup team and failing. Frustrated by the game and the way he was handling himself, Glover took an extended break from golf late in 2008 to clear his mind and recalibrate the way he dealt with himself.
"I'm better than I used to be. I used to be terrible, terrible," Glover said of his approach to the inevitable frustrations of golf.
"I've learned in the grand scheme of things, it's going to come around. You work on the right things and trust who you're working with and what you're working on, it's going to come around. This time last year, it was kinda the same thing. Just playing OK, then it started clicking.
"I feel I'm doing the right stuff. Just waiting for it."
Growing up in Greenville, just two hours from Augusta, Glover always imagined himself winning the Masters. He spent his Aprils attending the Masters with his grandfather, Dick Hendley, and when Glover had to make a putt before he could leave the putting green every evening, it was always the Masters he was putting to win.
The U.S. Open trophy is just fine, however.
"I'm not going to be picky," Glover said.
Since winning, he has avoided some of the temptations that come with a major championship victory. He didn't spend the offseason cashing appearance checks at tournaments around the world. He stayed close to home, spent time with his friends and family and went about being Lucas Glover.
"He's almost gone to the other side of the coin in an effort to not change since winning the Open. That's great," Warren said.
Glover remembers something his friend, Davis Love III, told him shortly after he won the U.S. Open. Love was talking about golf but the message reached beyond the game.
"He said, 'You won the Open playing like you. That's pretty good. There's no need to change a lot,"' Glover said. "That meant a lot to me."
He's taken it to heart.
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