A Fresh Start for Bill Glasson

IF YOU HAD SEEN Bill Glasson back in the 1980s, you might have mistaken him for a skinny Charley Hoffman. Glasson had long, curly blond locks. Before joining the PGA Tour in 1983, he was a two-time All-American at Oral Roberts University.

I read at GolfWRX.com that the “dude never wore shoes when he played [golf]” while growing up in Fresno, California. Glasson looks more like a surfer than a golfer in a 1970s photo taken from a high-school yearbook.

Turning 50 at the end of April, Glasson is one of the lesser-known players who has joined the Champions Tour this season. Steve Lowery is another. Both are playing in this week’s AT&T Championship in San Antonio, Texas.

Glasson was a good player who won seven times in a 12-year span on the PGA Tour. His best finish in a major was a T-4 in the 1995 U.S. Open, and he amassed nearly $7 million in career winnings.

I wrote about Blake Adams’s medical troubles earlier this year, but Adams has nothing on Glasson. Bill had a respectable career despite enduring 19 surgeries on all parts of his body, including his elbow, sinuses, knee, lip, forearm and lower back. By the time he reached his 40s, physical problems limited his play on the PGA Tour.

Now he’s back on the second-chance circuit. In 11 Champions Tour events, Glasson has made 10 cuts (with two sixth-place finishes) and is 63rd on the money list.

−The Armchair Golfer