PGA Tour 2010 SBS Championship Preview – Glover Leads by 1

PGA Tour 2010 SBS Championship Preview at Golf Betting: U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover played 26 tournaments last year and made only two eagles. It only took him nine holes in the new season to match that total, and the timing could not have been better.

The start of the season-opening SBS Championship was not something Glover envisioned. He hit a 3-wood so weakly that while most players had a wedge to the green, he was hitting 4-iron. And he didn't hit that one very well, for it sailed to the right and disappeared into the native grasses, a simple recipe for a double bogey.

"I should have stayed home," Glover said Thursday.

Good thing he was kidding, because he would have missed an amazing turnaround that featured two eagles and four straight birdies, a nine-hole stretch that he played in 9-under par and led him to a 7-under 66 and a one-shot lead.

"Any time you have a stretch like that, it gives you confidence because something is there," Glover said.

His final birdie on the par-5 18th, pitching to within a foot of the cup, put him atop the leaderboard over Martin Laird, Nathan Green, Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney and Dustin Johnson.

British Open champion Stewart Cink and Masters champion Angel Cabrera were among those at 68. Defending champion Geoff Ogilvy had a late bogey for a 68.

With a 28-man field at Kapalua, it remained relatively tight from top-to-bottom.

Heath Slocum (75) and Mark Wilson (74) were the only players who failed to break par on a breezy day above the Pacific Ocean. Even so, a nine-shot difference between first and worst is unusual.

The first tournament of the year with such a small field usually brings a mixed bag of games. Some players are rusty, others still feel as though they're on vacation with no cut and stunning beauty of Maui, and some can't quite figure out how to handle a Plantation course carved out of a mountain that requires imagination to get the ball close on greens with such severe grain.

Glover has not been to Kapalua since 2006, when he won at Disney by holing a bunker shot on the last hole. His start that year didn't inspire much confidence, either - bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey until he recovered with a 74.

This was different.

Check out the PGA Tour 2010 Golf Odds.