KAPALUA, Maui >> Jim Herman remembers 16 years ago, when he went to the ATM and discovered he had a negative balance.
Like a lot of 20-somethings struggling to make ends meet, the golfer went to his dad to bail him out. He can’t count the number of friends along the way who wanted him to realize his dream of playing professional golf at the highest level.
There would be five grand here and another four grand there to get him into Q-school, where he tried time and time again to earn his card, only to come agonizingly close but fail to punch that elusive ticket.
“Nobody was really looking to monetize anything on me,” said Herman, who is tied for second after shooting a 6-under 66 in Thursday’s opening round of the SBS Tournament of Champions. “They were always out to see me reach my goal, and it takes a while.”
Not until he met a guy named Donald Trump at the president-elect’s New Jersey course in 2006 did he receive the kind of stake needed to make it at this level. Mickie Gallagher, the head pro at Trump National in Bedminster, N.J., hired Herman as an assistant.
Turns out Gallagher needed Herman to fill out a foursome with Trump. Herman played so well, Trump wondered what a ball-striker like him was doing playing in a foursome like this. Trump was so impressed with Herman’s character and toughness he opened his wallet wide enough for Herman to play the Nationwide Tour (now Web.com).
That helped Herman finally get over the rub of the green and eventually become a PGA Tour member in 2015. It took until the Shell Houston Open last April, 107 tour events into Herman’s career, before he finally won and qualified for this week’s elite winners-only event.
But if you think this is the first time he has played the famed Plantation Course, you would be wrong. When he and his wife got married, they honeymooned in the Hawaiian Islands and this course was on his wish list.
“Yes, in 2005, my wife, Carolyn, and I, we were married in September,” Herman said. “We took a cruise of the Hawaiian Islands, and obviously there’s stops at every port. No way I wasn’t coming to play the golf course.
“We got off, rented a car and came over. We were first off in the morning and we had a great time. Used rental clubs and just playing with three other gentlemen and my wife rode along with us. We just had a great time. So good memories. I see the pictures on our computer all the time. We had a great day.”
Herman thinks he shot even par and remembers holing out for eagle at the 12th. But he wasn’t playing from the tips and he didn’t have to pay to swing since he was an assistant pro at PGA Golf Club in PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
It would be another year before he met Trump. Herman even played a round of golf with the president-elect last month and proudly displays Trump on his golf shirt — pretty heady stuff for a guy from Cincinnati who knocked around on more mini-tours than he cares to remember.
Like a lot of golfers chasing the dream, All-Americans in college who disappear because the cash runs out, Herman counts himself among the fortunate few who made it. Granted, the 39-year-old is on the wrong side of his prime, but he hung in there long enough to tee it up with the likes of Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth.
“I mean, I’ve talked about my journey a lot and I was playing mini-tours and Q-School for four years, and I kind of stopped with the mini-tours in 2004 and got in the golf business,” Herman said.
“I was not going to give up on the dream of getting here, but I wasn’t going to do mini-tours and the Monday qualifiers. I was going to get a job. And getting married, who knows about a family at that time, and pay the bills. I was just going to go to Q-School in the fall, and that happened after our honeymoon. We got home and I went to Q-School and I missed again. So back to work at St. Lucie. I was OK with that.
“Did I ever think I would be here at that time, 2005? This is a long way from there, 12 years. I’d like to say that I always believed it, but it’s a pretty long way from being assistant pro to a tournament winner on the PGA Tour. Obviously it’s attainable and I hope everyone that’s out there grinding and trying knows that they can do it — if I did it, anybody can.”
Defending champ blues
If Spieth thought a place where he won before would welcome him home, the Texan might have to think again.
Last year, nothing much went wrong en route to becoming only the second golfer to go 30 under in a 72-hole event and win. That isn’t happening this time around after the Dallas native managed only a 1-under 72, good enough for a tie for 22nd in a 32-man field.
Spieth’s putting woes followed him around throughout the opening 18 holes, where he carded only three birdies against two bogeys on the back nine. Spieth trails first-round leader Jimmy Walker by seven shots and will need to go way low over the final 54 holes to get into contention.
Inside the numbers
The most difficult holes on the opening day were the par-4 seventh and the par-4 17th at 4.156. Nobody birdied the 17th and there were only four birdies at seven. On the downside there were five bogeys at the 17th and nine at the seventh in fairly good conditions.
The easiest hole was the par-5 ninth with an average of 4.531. There were 15 birdies and 17 pars at that hole. For the day, there were only three eagles — two at the par-five fifth and one at the par-4 third, where Ryan Moore holed out from the fairway. The scoring average was 70.344.
