Few people had heard of the Treasure Coast resident until he had the audacity to birdie the 16th hole Sunday and win the Shell Houston Open by a shot over a star-studded leaderboard.
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Herman’s victory was his first in 106 starts on the PGA Tour. When those things don’t happen, we make a huge deal out of it – but golf is one of the hardest sports in the world to predict. Sure, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day are favored in Vegas to win the Masters this week, but there’s a very good chance someone outside the top 50 in the world is in contention over the weekend (and hopefully that person is Tom Watson, playing in his final Masters).
Donald Trump might be losing momentum in Republican primaries, but he still has the golden touch when it comes to golf apparently.
After winning Houston, Herman explained his background a little bit in his postgame press conference.
Australian youngster Cameron Smith produced a decent tune-up for his Masters debut as American journeyman Jim Herman claimed the last available spot in this week’s Augusta National field. “This is insane and I’m going to enjoy it. We’ll get our daughter out of school and they’ll be up at Augusta next week”. Trump encouraged him to give it another shot, and Herman eventually qualified for the PGA Tour.
“But I worked in New Jersey for two years, worked at Trump National and had some really – met some really nice people, played a lot of golf and played with Mr. Trump, and he gave me a lot of confidence, you know”. He’s seen a lot of players in Pro-Ams.
The short one I do like is Billy Horschel, who should be too good for Darren Clarke and Matt Fitzpatrick. Within the past month, Herman has changed from block letters of “Trump” to a logo from Trump’s course.
The day before Easter Sunday, Herman played with Trump and Dana Quigley, who won 11 times on the Champions Tour, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Why aren’t you on the tour?
“I told Jim, ‘You have no idea how good you are”.
Trump said spotting that kind of talent was a no-brainer, especially as far as Herman hit his tee shots. I was pretty low with my game. Could we play a round of golf?
“Why are you folding shirts and giving lessons?” “It helps all of us when he’s out, so I’m ready for him to come back”. “I don’t have words to say how well I’m feeling”.
But he went into the final round at the Golf Club of Houston tied for the lead with Jamie Lovemark. So I staked him.
Stenson has now finished as runner-up eight times since his last win, at the DP World Tour Championship in late 2014.
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Coupled with a best finish of 14th in 10 appearances in the Masters, that would appear to make Stenson an unlikely candidate to become the first European victor of a green jacket since Jose Maria Olazabal in 1999.
