Glover edges his buddy to win at Quail Hollow

Lucas Glover figures he has played more than 100 rounds with Jonathan Byrd, from junior golf when they were teenagers to their years together at Clemson and nearly a decade on the PGA Tour.

The stakes were never as high as they were Sunday in the Wells Fargo Championship.

Glover was never better.

Clinging to a one-shot lead, Glover closed with three gutsy pars of the brutal finishing stretch at Quail Hollow, slamming his fist when he made the last one from 7 feet for a 3-under-par 69 and what looked to be a sure victory. Then came Byrd, with two great pars of his own, followed by a shot into 15 feet that he made for birdie on the 18th for a 72 to force a playoff in Charlotte, N.C.

Glover wound up a winner with a par on the first extra hole, ending a drought of 41 tournaments that stretched nearly two years back to his U.S. Open victory at Bethpage Black in 2009.

It was the eighth playoff this year on the PGA Tour, and the third in a row.

"I'm elated," Glover said. "Any time you win, you're pleased. It means you beat everybody. You did what you set out to do on Thursday morning when the bell rang. Against this field and on this golf course and in a tournament of this magnitude, I'm thrilled."

Byrd, who went from a fairway bunker to the hazard left the green, hit a difficult chip 25 by the hole and wound up with a bogey.

"I'm a little disappointed just because you're here to win," Byrd said. "You love to compete, especially when you get in a playoff. You birdie the last, you feel like, 'Hey, this is just going to work out.'

"If I couldn't win, I couldn't pick anybody else I'd want to win other than Lucas, so I'm very happy for him."

Rory Sabbatini, who closed with a 65, wound up alone in third.

European TourThomas Aiken earned his first European Tour title with a two-shot victory at the Spanish Open in Terrassa and promptly dedicated the victory to golf great Seve Ballesteros.

Ballesteros died Saturday from complications of a cancerous brain tumor. Aiken said the 54-year-old Spaniard, who won the Spanish Open three times, was "everything to the game of golf and I am happy to have won for him."