08/02/2010 6:02 PM
Luke Buttigieg at Moonah Links
While Tiger Woods is renowned for wearing red shirts on the final day at tournaments, blue might become Jim Herman's colour of choice for Sundays after he admitted superstition played a part in his attire on the way to his Moonah Classic win.
Herman, who shot a course-record 62 on Thursday and either held the lead outright or shared it after each of the following two rounds, went on to claim his biggest win by birdying the first playoff hole to deny fellow American Chris Kirk at Moonah Links.
And having visited the clubhouse to face the media after the first and second rounds, Herman admitted that he changed his mind on what colour shirt he would wear on the final day after seeing photos of the first two winners of the title, Ewan Porter and Alistair Presnell.
"You know I walked by the pictures of Alistair (Presnell) and Ewan (Porter) every day and they had blue shirts on," Herman said.
"I wore this shirt earlier in the week but I'm not going to lie, I definitely was planning on wearing a black shirt with black pants (today)."
"I even asked my wife, 'what should I do?' And she just said, 'do whatever you think' (so) I pulled it out, (because) I'm pretty superstitious."
"I was like, 'everyone on that wall so far to win this event has had that light blue shirt on so why fight it?'."
The superstitions didn't end there either with Australian Scott Gardiner, who Herman stayed with during the tournament, making further revelations during Herman's post-win media conference.
"(We) had to get the steak and sausages out (last night) because he had the steak and sausages before he shot 62 so last night (Saturday) we did it again," Gardiner said with a laugh.
The 32-year-old, who once worked as an assistant pro at Donald Trump's Trump National course in New Jersey, seemed so relaxed out on the course on the final day that several times he smiled at the camera.
He also provided some on-course commentary when he and Kirk played the 18th the first time, admitting he'd wished he'd landed his approach closer to the hole and then also that Kirk was facing a tough approach of his own.
Then Herman even found time in between completing the 72nd hole and starting the playoff to sign several autographs for a group of kids that swamped him: "The kids overwhelmed me. (It's) hard to turn them down."