Jim Herman was your basic journeyman golfer until he won the Shell Houston Open last year.
He was probably best known for being a golf buddy of President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, he was the best man on what is supposed to be a pretty touch Copperhead course at the Innisbrook Resort where this week’s Valspar Championship.
Herman birdied half the holes and shot a career best nine-under par 62 on a course where nine-under might win you the championship in some years past.
“I do enjoy it here,” said Herman, who has not had great success on the course in previous appearances. “It’s just a wonderful test of golf.”
There were plenty of low scores along with Herman’s.
Henrik Stenson stepped up to make sure there was a name player at the top. The reigning Open champion put together a smooth 64 as did Russell Henley. Stenson had obviously recovered nice from the food poisoning that wiped him out midway through the first round last week.
This is a field without the star power of a WGC event. It’s the week after Mexico City and two weeks before another WGC event, the match play in Austin, Tx.
So the Valspar has to make-do with what it can get.
Patrick Reed managed to break par, barely, with a 70. Same for the defending champ Charl Schwartzel. Jim Furyk has the perfect game for this track and he shot 69.
With tight, tree-lined fairways, there’s not a lot of room to hit big slices or draws so you wonder why Bubba Watson’s on site? True to form, he shot 73 and is in danger of missing the 36-hole cut which may come at one-under par come Friday afternoon.
The afternoon wave found itself in the slow play mode. Not everyone finished and there’s no excuse for that except that pace of play continues to be a problem on the PGA Tour.
2 Comments
beege
what a great golf course that has stood the test of time-the Copperhead-the field is o.k. next week the field is equally only o.k.–looking back Tom, the API Tiger winning the event 8 times and an almost unbelievable 4 times in a row and once i believe by over 10 shots. I remember when they played the citrus open at rio penar —a couple of my Gators Koch and Bean won it.
Just rambling a bit this morning–take care
Tom Edrington
Bob, I actually covered the Citrus when it was played at Rio Pinar! It was huge when Arnold brought it to Bay Hill, I have a lot of memories hanging out with Arnold. He was very hands on, wanted to make sure everything was right. I remember in the early days at Bay Hill, someone shot 63 and Arnold was pissed, I remember he was standing there talk to Jack (Nicklaus) and Jack basically told Arnold it was his fault because they moved the tees up in that round….”At Muirfield, we let the grass grow over the front tees so they can’t use them…” is what Nicklaus told Palmer and from then on, they grew the grass over the shorter tees at Bay Hill.