Scott Michaux: Lesser-known stories add to magic of the Masters

The faces that make the Masters Tournament famous are usually so familiar that we know them on a first-name basis – Arnie, Jack, Gary, Seve, Tiger, Phil, Bubba.

Those legends are what made the Masters great, but it’s the stories of players you might not be able to pick out of a PGA Tour lineup that make the Masters special.

Jim and Vaughn aren’t first names on the tip of most golf fans’ tongues, but Jim Herman and Vaughn Taylor represent the rank-and-file joy that only an invitation to play the season’s first major at Augusta National can evoke.

Herman, 38, became the last player into the 2016 field on Sunday night with a dramatic victory over Henrik Stenson in Houston. He tried to hide his tears behind sunglasses as he gave his post-round interview on television, but there was no covering the emotional cracks in his voice when the interviewer said “see you in Augusta.”

“Geez, look what happened,” Herman said. “Never thought it was possible.”

Taylor, 40, was similarly choked up at Pebble Beach in February when he rallied to beat Phil Mickelson to earn back not only his long-lost PGA Tour card but also a trip back to his hometown Masters for the first time since 2008.

“I didn’t really realize it until I was doing an interview with Dottie Pepper after the round, and she brought it up,” Taylor said. “There was so much going on, and waiting on pins and needles to see Phil finish and things. So I had not really thought about it at that time. But that interview with Dottie was kind of when it hit me. It was like, wow, I’m going back to Augusta.”

There are 18 ways to qualify for a spot in the Masters. Outside of winning a lifetime invitation with a green jacket, the most dramatic and cherished avenue is the automatic bid for PGA Tour winners.

Since the Masters reinstated the automatic invitation to non-opposite PGA Tour event winners in 2008, it has rekindled the drama and emotion that come with the spoils of victory. For many, it’s the first thought that crosses their mind when that final putt drops.

Seven first-timers in this year’s field booked their way to Augusta via tour victories: Fabian Gomez, Emiliano Grillo, Smylie Kaufman, David Lingmerth, Troy Merritt, Justin Thomas and Herman. Even a couple of major winners and Augusta veterans such as Davis Love III and Graeme McDowell appreciated the only way they got back.

Whether any of them have an opportunity to contend for a green jacket come Sunday is not really the point. Sometimes just getting to Augusta is victory enough.

Herman epitomizes how just getting the chance to drive down Magnolia Lane can feel like a triumph. From folding shirts as a club professional in New Jersey through all the trials and tribulations that nine years working through the ranks of the developmental tours to reach the PGA Tour, all the effort came spilling out in his tears after Sunday’s eleventh-hour win.

“I’ve been a fan of golf my whole life, dreaming of playing here, and now it’s happened,” Herman said. “I was planning on flying home last night, and I was going to get home at midnight, see my kids this morning, take my daughter to school – and that’s obviously changed.”

Now Herman’s extended family is making an impromptu trip to the Masters. The closest he thought he’d ever get to it was a Saturday round he attended using his Nationwide Tour credential in 2008. He felt lucky enough just to play the course once in November as a guest.

“It was everything imagined,” he said.

Taylor has accomplished more in his career than Herman. The local resident who grew up in south Augusta and attended Augusta State University was a Ryder Cup member a decade ago and got three chances to compete in his hometown major. He even held the lead by himself with 21 holes to go in 2007.

“I took a glance” at the leaderboard, he said. “I couldn’t help it.”

Past successes enhanced his frustration as years of trying to reclaim his stature proved fruitless, though. His low point was only a week before his renaissance victory at Pebble Beach when he was sick with a stomach virus in a hotel room in Bogota, Colombia, praying for it to stop.

“It was just a combination of where I was, how I was feeling and what status I had,” Taylor said. “And felt a lot of pressure heading into Pebble, because I knew it was going to be one of my few tour starts of the year, and it was tough.”

A year ago, Taylor got practice-round tickets to the Masters just to show his wife and toddler son what it was all about. Now he’s back in the field.

“Just feels great to be on the grounds,” Taylor said. “Still a little jittery, but it’s good. I’m having fun and, you know, just really, really appreciate being back.”

Where would Taylor be right now if he wasn’t teeing it up in his favorite major?

“I could be in Cartagena (Colombia) this week,” he said of the Web.com Tour alternative, where he might still be hoping that the sick feeling in his stomach would go away.

Herman and Taylor aren’t the stories anyone is talking about on Sunday when the Jasons, Jordans, Rorys and Adams are stirring up the roars as the shadows get long on the second nine. But it’s minor stories like theirs that make a major like the Masters stand out.