PORTLAND, Ore. — Tim Herron’s chunked chip on 18 yesterday at Pumpkin Ridge had immediate consequences and others he couldn’t have known about.
Tim Herron’s chunked chip on 18 had immediate consequences for Harold Varner III, adopted son of Grey Goatee Nation, and he couldn’t have cared less about the rest.
When Herron plopped it into the tall grass short left of Witch Hollow’s 18th green, it meant he wouldn’t be making up a three-shot deficit on Dicky Pride with one dramatic chip-in.
For Varner, who was standing nearby, the miracle-that-wasn’t for Herron was the miracle-that-was — a mathematical miracle, because 25 stayed 25 and didn’t change no matter what was roiling up and down above and below. Note: do not expect an explanation of the math. No human being could explain it.
The 25-year-old Varner entered the WinCo Foods Portland Open at No. 25 on The 25 — the top 25 money-winners on the Web.com Tour — and needed to stay there to earn his PGA Tour Card. Varner shot one-under 70 Sunday, and then waited it out … until the final group of the day and Herron’s third shot.
The non-mathematical way of telling it: if it had gone in, AND Pride had taken bogey, it would have meant a playoff — and more waiting for Varner.
Herron would have needed to win the playoff to bump Varner out of The 25 … but he chunked, Pride made a scrambling par, and … the math works.
Pride, 46, who hadn’t won a professional tournament since 1994, moved from 40th all the way to No. 5 with the $144,000 winner’s check … and next year will get to chase purses on the PGA Tour — where the math is the same but the numbers are a lot bigger.
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