Herman heads to FedExCup Playoffs after victory Sunday
Jim Herman won the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship at 21 under after a 63.
GREENSBORO, N.C. – At the Wyndham Championship, last birdie usually wins. Jim Herman brought plenty of firepower to a shootout at soggy Sedgefield Country Club. He came from out of nowhere, following up a career-best 9under 61 Saturday with a final-round 63 to edge Billy Horschel by one stroke and equaled the lowest final 36-hole score by a winner in PGA Tour history. “Goodness gracious. Obviously you don’t expect 61 or 63 on a regular basis, but when you need it, there was nowhere else to go but deep,” said Herman, who equaled Stuart Appleby’s record at the 2010 Greenbrier Classic. “Best golf I’ve played in my life.” Herman was the longest of long shots, entering the tournament No. 192 in the FedExCup standings and needing no worse than a second-place finish to qualify for the Playoffs.
Herman, 42, had endured a forgettable season, finishing no better than 27th, and had missed the cut in eight of his last 11 starts. He was the only golfer whom Brooks Koepka beat in the final round of the PGA Championship last week when he finished T-77, and he hadn’t shot better than 65 all season.
“In golf, you’re as good as your last round sometimes,” Herman said. “It’s easy to forget some of those poor rounds or poor finishes. And I never felt like I was that far off.”
Herman made one critical switch this past week, changing putters and going to a cross-handed putting grip, where the left hand is placed below the right hand on the shaft. It worked Sunday as he canned a 29-foot birdie putt at the first, a 59-foot eagle at the par-5 fifth and a 14-foot birdie at 8. Herman tacked on three more birdies coming home, including sticking a wedge to 4 feet at 17 to take the solo lead for the first time. A closing par at 18 sealed it as Herman finished with a 72-hole total of 21-under 259.
Herman opened with rounds of 6669 to make the weekend.
Horschel grabbed the lead after shooting 31 on the front nine Sunday, but despite posting 65, his 23rd consecutive round of par of better at Sedgefield, a bogey on No. 16 and a missed 11-foot birdie at the last hole relegated the five-time winner to second place.
Herman leaped to No. 54 in the FedExCup, moving up 138 spots, the largest gain by a player in the regular-season finale. Zach Johnson (No. 104) and Shane Lowry (No. 122) also improved into the top 125 of the standings and qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs. Fabian Gomez, Russell Knox and Charl Schwartzel were bumped out.
Herman not only has to change his travel plans for Boston and the Northern Trust, but make room for his third career Tour trophy.
“Winning the first one was amazing, life changing,” he said of the 2016 Shell Houston Open. “Last summer (winning the Barbasol) was just a little validating, overcoming some injuries and just, you know, getting old. You get old pretty quick out here with the young guys. They make you feel inadequate off the tee and especially long irons. To overcome it all and get here for a third time is pretty amazing.”