All things considered, Monday wasn’t a bad day for Kansas University golf coach Jamie Bermel to be on the road recruiting.
Zach Johnson was Monday’s worldwide story in golf, winning the British Open in a three-way, four-hole playoff with Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Australia’s Marc Leishman. Jordan Spieth missed joining them by a stroke.
Bermel recounted that, at the first round of the U.S. Junior Amateur tournament he attended Monday at Colleton River Plantation Club in Bluffton, South Carolina, he was walking the course when a competitor turned to him and asked, “Did you coach Zach Johnson in college?”
The coach nodded.
Bermel recruited Johnson, a native of Iowa City, to Drake University, located in Des Moines. At the time, Johnson was the second-best player on his high school team, Bermel said.
First impressions?
“Really good putter,” Bermel said. “He was a little guy. Didn’t hit it very far. He probably shot 78 the day I watched him, but he could putt a golf ball. I remember that for sure.”
How did Johnson go from second-best player on his high school team to winner of two majors (2007 Masters)?
“Good question,” Bermel said. “In my years of coaching, my best players — and this isn’t a knock against the best players — it seems those guys have an attitude that they think they’re better than they really are. They just have some inner-confidence about them that they think their best shot is going to be their next shot. It seems like those guys are the ones who come to the top.”
Johnson, 39 (eight weeks younger than Tiger Woods), played on the defunct Prairie Tour and notched his first professional victory at Lawrence Country Club, where a glass-encased flag from that event signed by him is displayed.
“I sent him a picture of that,” Bermel said. “He said, ‘I remember those greens. They were unbelievable.'”
Bermel said he most recently talked with Johnson about two months ago.
“We talked a lot about family, my golf team, and, of course, Kansas basketball,” Bermel said. “He wanted to know what Allen Fieldhouse is like. Naturally, it took 15 minutes to talk about that.”
Getting Johnson to come to a game at the fieldhouse “is on my bucket list,” Bermel said.
According to his college coach, Johnson hasn’t developed a big head.
“He’s the same,” Bermel said. “He’s just a good, good guy, and he’s one of those guys who’s very unassuming, rolls with the punches. Big sports fan. Just a good, solid guy. What you see on TV is what you get.”
