Zalatoris missed a birdie putt at the last that would have awarded him a Friday tee time.
Welcome to your rare Thursday 36-hole cut report.
The wind huffed and puffed and blew half the field at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines on their way out of town. It took even-par 144 to survive and advance and claim a Friday tee time and remain alive with a chance to hoist the trophy and go home with the winner’s surfboard on Saturday.
It will be a big field with 19 players tied for 54th place, including Rickie Fowler and Tony Finau, who both made birdies at the last to give themselves a chance to try and catch 36-hole leader Sam Ryder (-12). But not everyone was so lucky. Here are some of the notable names to miss the cut.
“He pushes me. To know that he’s an athlete and he knows what it takes to make it, it’s huge. He’s a great support system.”
SAN DIEGO – Michael Herrera is making his PGA Tour debut Wednesday at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. It’s the course where he first attended a tournament and watched Tiger Woods.
“After I saw it, I’m like I want to play,” he said. “I want to do this for a living and it inspired me.”
Herrera’s local-boy-makes-good story is an easy one to love but that barely scratches the surface of his story in golf. It turns out Herrera’s story has way more to it.
Ronnie Lott remembers the tee shot.
He was playing in Cedric the Entertainer’s Celebrity Golf Classic, a charity golf tournament, in August 2021 and Herrera was stationed at a tee box on a par 5 to hit drives for the various teams. Lott, the Hall of Fame defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers, and his group couldn’t believe the sound one of Herrera’s drives made and the distance it traveled. Lott recalls the moments that followed in cinematic detail.
“It was that moment, where I was like, hey, kid, come talk to me, I want to know your story,” Lott recalled during a phone interview.
Runner-up Michael Herrera on the fairway at No. 17 during the final round of the 2022 John Shippen National Invitational at the Detroit Golf Club. (Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press)
Herrera, 24, told Lott, about growing up in Moreno Valley, California, not far from where Lott, too, was raised (in Rialto), and how he gave up basketball, where he averaged more than 18 points per game in high school, to pursue making it as a professional golfer, primarily on the Advocates Pro Golf Association, a development tour designed to bring greater diversity to the game by developing African-Americans and other minorities for careers in golf. Lott was impressed and asked, “How are you paying for this? Who’s helping you?”
“Nobody,” said Herrera, who was working part-time at the cart barn of a golf course to pay tournament entry fees. “It’s just me and my Pops. We split everything.”
Lott couldn’t help but think of the shoulders that had helped him climb to such heights – Harry Edwards, the American sociologist and civil rights activist, and Charlie Young, former USC football star and 13-year NFL veteran – and was moved to do something he’d never done before.
“Why wouldn’t I help somebody that really loves something? Why wouldn’t I help somebody with a dream?” Lott said. “You always want people to stand on your shoulders to see success. And, you know, that’s the greatest thing you can do for another human being.”
Lott and Herrera exchanged numbers that day. He didn’t realize that one of the greatest to ever play the game of football was about to take him under his wing.
“I had to look him up and then I was like, ‘Wow, he’s big time,’ ” Herrera said. Less than two weeks later, Lott called and asked a very direct question: “How much do you need for the rest of the year?”
“That’s how it all started,” said Herrera. “I gave him a number and he said, ‘OK,’ and he sent me the Tracy Toyota logo (of the car dealership that Lott owns) to get some shirts and hats made along with a check. It was such a relief. I play so much freer now.”
Runner-up Michael Herrera hits from the 18th tee during the final round of the 2022 John Shippen National Invitational at the Detroit Golf Club. (Photo by Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press)
Lott also connected Herrera with agent Sandy Sandoval, whose clients include Patrick Reed, and helped him add a slew of logos to his shirt.
After every tournament round, Herrera texts Lott a report and Lott always asks, “What do you have to do to get better?” Among Lott’s advice that’s stuck with Herrera is to be in the moment and be grateful for the moment.
“He pushes me,” Herrera said. “To know that he’s an athlete and he knows what it takes to make it, it’s huge. He’s a great support system.”
Herrera’s support system extends beyond Lott to Allison Keller, the PGA Tour’s chief administrative officer, who has hosted him during tournaments in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, and teared up when Herrera and fellow APGA pro Joseph Dent left “a sweet note” and Starbucks card as a thank you.
“He’s got personality plus,” she said. “I think he’ll make it in golf but if he doesn’t I’d love to hire him at the PGA Tour.”
Truth be told, Herrera’s first love is basketball. He says he was a good enough point guard to play Division I in college but didn’t have the grades.
“UC-Irvine wanted me,” he said.
He ended up playing hoops at Riverside City College until basketball coach Phil Mathews got a look at his golf ability. Mathews saw raw promise and he sat Herrera down and told him he could keep playing basketball, but he wasn’t going to be great at it. But he could be great at golf.
Mathews said he was going to cut Herrera for his own good, and introduced him to APGA founder Ken Bentley, his former college roommate at UC-Irvine. After Bentley, a former Nestle executive, played a round with Herrera at Wilshire Country Club, he offered him a spot in an APGA Tour event as an amateur, and Herrera bagged a top-10 finish. With the encouragement of the likes of veteran pro Kevin Hall, who played college golf at Ohio State and told Herrera he had enough game to chase the dream, Herrera turned pro in 2019.
“My game stacked up, and I thought, man, maybe there’s something here,” he said.
He enjoyed his best year yet in 2022, including his maiden APGA victory in April when he made birdie at 18 at TPC Scottsdale to win by a stroke. (He flamed out at the second stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q-School and has only conditional status on PGA Tour Latinoamerica and PGA Tour Canada this season.) It was Mathews who had the privilege of informing his former player that he would be receiving a PGA Tour exemption at Torrey Pines.
“To have an exemption into any event would be amazing just to see where my game is at at that level,” Herrera said before receiving the news of his Farmers start.
I'm excited to share that I've received an exemption to play in the 2023 @FarmersInsOpen! It's a dream come true to not only get my first-ever PGA TOUR start, but to have it happen where I attended my first PGA TOUR tournament as a kid. Thanks to @WeAreFarmers for the opportunity https://t.co/JvdSaxkg4a
As a kid, Herrera would drive pass Cottonwood Golf Center, a nine-hole, 1,226-yard, par-28 municipal course in his hometown on the way to the mall and to basketball practice. He remembers seeing all that grass and pleading with his dad, Hugo, who emigrated from Guatemala as a teenager, to take him there.
“Golf is a rich man’s sport,” his father said.
But at age 10, after seemingly the 100th time he asked to go to the golf course, his father finally gave in, and they took up the game together. There were tears of joy when Herrera broke the news to his dad that he would be playing against the likes of Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa in the Farmers Insurance Open.
“It’s just one more step,” Herrera’s dad said. “It’s just the beginning.”
That he’s come this far is all the more remarkable given that Herrera never had a coach until his second year as a pro. His clubs were purchased from a barrel at a Roger Dunn Golf Shop. Thanks to the APGA, he was fitted for clubs by Callaway and started receiving professional instruction. He’s a late bloomer, but Lott believes the best is yet to come.
“I tell him to keep grinding, and I hope he continues to dream,” Lott said. “I have this thing I live by — exhaust every moment. And I love the fact that that’s what I’m seeing with Michael. He’s exhausting every moment. And you know, that’s all you can ask from a human being.”
Michael Herrera, a former basketball player at Riverside City College, now has two victories on the APGA Tour.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Michael Herrera’s strategy for the Advocates Professional Golf Association event at TPC Scottsdale was simple.
Keep the ball in play. Find the middle of the green. Try to sink a 10-foot putt.
At the 18th hole, Herrera followed the first two steps by firing his tee shot in the short grass and landing his next attempt in the middle of the green. Preparing for his third shot, he read the green shifting right 1 ½ inches and on a downward angle.
With wind in his face, he hit the putt firm. The ball eventually rolled to the hole and fell in, achieving the third step of his strategy with one key difference: his attempt was from 30 feet away.
That successful birdie putt ended up winning him the APGA event.
“It means a lot,” said Herrera, who finished the 36-hole tournament at 4 under. “It’s my first two-day win, so it feels great.”
After finishing Monday’s first round down four strokes to leader Daniel Augustus, Herrera sparked his victory Tuesday by notching four birdies to finish his second round at 3 under. For APGA Tour CEO Ken Bentley, watching Herrera’s win was a rewarding experience.
Before Herrera turned professional in 2019, he was a basketball player at Riverside City College in California. Coach Philip Mathews noticed his golf skill and called Bentley, his best friend and college roommate, and said he believed Herrera could be a good fit on the APGA Tour.
When Bentley later played a round with him, he quickly noticed Herrera’s talent. As a result, he recommended to Mathews that Herrera shift his focus to golf. The coach then encouraged Herrera to switch sports and told him his decision was rooted in “thinking about your future.”
“Mike (will) tell you it’s the best thing that ever happened to him,” Bentley said. “He was disappointed at first because he loved the game, but you could see immediately the raw talent. The guy hits it long. He’s got good hands.”
When Herrera officially joined the APGA Tour, he received a new set of clubs and lessons from golf instructor Dana Dahlquist, who coached players including current DP World Tour member Robert Rock.
Herrera’s first win came in January 2021 at the Crossings at Carlsbad in California. It would take more than year for his next one, but Herrera has enjoyed his golf journey so far. Additionally, he appreciates the APGA’s work to increase diversity in golf.
“It’s huge, the APGA putting minorities out there to succeed and to come out here and play the best they can. (It’s) just all inspiration. Little kids see us play. It’s a big deal for me and I think it’s a big deal for a lot of people to see minorities out there play.”
This week’s tournament at TPC Scottsdale marked the sixth stop of the APGA Tour’s Lexus Cup, a series that will resume on May 6 at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
According to APGA Tour Executive Director Cole Smith, the two-day event represented the successful continuation of the organization’s mission.
“Each event that we play and these guys perform at this level and caliber of play, it just shows you that we’re headed in the right direction,” Smith said. “We’re actually gaining ground on accomplishing what our mission is.”
The former San Francisco 49ers is the latest athlete to show support for the developmental tour.
When Ronnie Lott was a rookie in the NFL, legendary players like Deacon Jones and Jim Brown helped him grow and develop a career that lasted 14 seasons and earned him 10 Pro Bowl selections, four Super Bowl titles and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Now Lott is returning the favor to an up-and-coming minority golfer. The former defensive back for the San Francisco 49ers is sponsoring Michael Herrera, a player on the APGA Tour, a developmental tour for minority professional golfers. Lott will cover travel and competition-related expenses for Herrera, who won the APGA Tour season opener in January. In return, Herrera will wear a logo for Lott’s Tracy Toyota during competition.
The two met back in August at the Eighth Annual Cedric “The Entertainer” Celebrity Golf Classic Presented by Lexus on the second tee at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo, California.
“He was real interested in my story and he sees that I have the work ethic needed to give making the PGA Tour my best shot,” said Herrera via a release. “Ronnie Lott cares about diversity and he is interested in the success of the APGA Tour.”
The former defensive back, whose All Stars Helping Kids non-profit has raised $20 million for disadvantaged youth, isn’t the first athlete to support the APGA. Billy Horschel hosted an APGA event at TPC Sawgrass – won by Willie Mack – and Cameron Champ’s foundation is working on fundraising opportunities with the tour.
The APGA Tour continues later this month with the Farmers Insurance Fall Series, which began September 20-22 with APGA Tour Valley Forge. Next up is the APGA Tour Farmers Insurance Atlanta Championship, Oct. 17-19 at White Oak Golf Club at the Clubs of Peachtree City in Atlanta. The series concludes with the APGA Tour Farmers Insurance Fall Series Finale, Nov. 7-9 at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles.
