Keeping It Green / Columbus native prepared Michigan course for Senior PGA Championship

The past eight months have been sort of a whirlwind for Nate Herman.

In October, Herman married fellow Columbus native Hillary Bell at Irwin Gardens.

While the couple was on its honeymoon, Herman, who was working as greens superintendent at Victoria National Golf Course in Newburgh, received an offer to become golf course superintendent at The Golf Club at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Herman took the job and immediately began preparing the course for the Senior PGA Championship, which took place earlier this month.

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During the week of the tournament, Hillary found out that she was pregnant with the couple’s first child and is due to have a girl in October.

“You couldn’t ask for a more exciting last six or seven months,” Nate Herman said. “They always say the toughest thing you do is get married, a new job and kids, and we knocked all of that out in six months.”

Herman, 35, took a little time to relax last week, but only after going at it in what he called a “sprint” from November through May to get the course ready.

When he arrived, workers blew out the irrigation system and put down fungicide and dormant fertilizer. The course closed course when the ground froze and did not re-open until mid-April.

Over the winter, Benton Harbor experienced 90 to 95 inches of snow. Its average high temperatures in April were 10 degrees below normal, and night temperatures were around freezing. Herman said it was the coldest spring there in 35 years.

“When the weather turns a certain temperature, the grass sort of hibernates like a bear,” Herman said. “As the tournament got going, that was the first time I kind of saw the golf course wake up.”

Herman and his staff added 250 tons of sand to the bunkers. He oversees about 25 staff members, and they take care of 500 acres, including the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus course and the Jean Klock beach, which backs up to the property. They brought in 45 volunteers from all over the country to help out at the Senior PGA event.

A soccer player at Columbus East, Herman got his start in golf at Timbergate in Edinburgh. He and high school friends Spencer Thompson and Nate Patterson began working at Timbergate as cart kids when they were 15. Greg Bishop, who was the general manager, told Herman if golf was something he was interested in, he should pursue it.

Herman went to Wabash as a pre-med major and played golf there for a year. In the summers, he started working at Otter Creek for former pro and GM Chad Cockerham and superintendent Cory Troyer.

Before Herman’s junior year in college, Gary Myers at Harrison Lake said he would train him. Herman went to Purdue to finish degree in turf grass management.

“Columbus is kind of where I got my start,” Herman said. “If it wasn’t for Columbus, I never would have got this start. From there, I never looked back.”

Herman interned at the famed Baltusrol in northern New Jersey, then took assistant job at Pine Valley in southern New Jersey for three years. He returned to Indiana to work at Crooked Stick in Carmel from 2010-13, then on to Oakland Hills in Detroit for a year.

One of Herman’s old assistants became director of grounds at Victoria National and asked him to be his greens superintendent. He was there until taking the Harbor Shores job in October.

Harbor Shores has hosted the Senior PGA Championship every other year since 2012 and is scheduled to continue hosting every other year through at least 2024.

“Now, I actually get a solid year-and-a-half to go back through the notes and tweak and get better,” Herman said.

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Name: Nate Herman

Age: 35

High school: Columbus East

Colleges: Wabash, Purdue

Occupation: Golf course superintendent at The Golf Club at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor, Michigan

Family: Wife Hillary, first child due in October

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