GREENSBORO, N.C. _ They all had their chances, one after the other after the other, local knowledge not quite triumphant.
Doc Redman, looking for his first win on tour, burning edges on the back nine to fall short by three strokes. Webb Simpson with another near miss in a tournament he's won once and could have won a half-dozen times. Harold Varner III was the best on the course Thursday but couldn't quite maintain that momentum.
Three North Carolinians finished in the top eight at the Wyndham Championship, and all three had their chances to claim the title on a day when the soggy course was there for the taking and birdies were in ready supply. But a year after J.T. Poston picked up his first PGA Tour win in the state where he grew up, Redman and Varner were both denied the same.
And not by much.
Jim Herman was the winner at 21-under par on Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club, holding off Billy Horschel by a stroke after Horschel missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th green.
Simpson, a few groups earlier, missed a similar putt, but without the same stakes. He was on the verge all week without ever quite contending, and yet still put together his usual Sunday rally to get into the mix, as he always seems to be at Sedgefield. Three strokes back at 18-under, Simpson finished in the top 10 at the Wyndham for the eighth time and fourth straight year, a too-familiar position for the Raleigh native and Broughton High and Wake Forest product. At 66-66-65-65, he was perhaps too consistent.
"It's an 'almost' week," Simpson said. "Almost good, almost a low one every day. Today was an almost. I felt like I left two shots out there on the front. I bogeyed 1 from the middle of the fairway and three-putted 5, but other than that, today was really solid. I just needed a quicker start I think to get in contention today, being 5 back. But all in all, I take a lot of positives coming out of this week. I feel a lot better about my game than I did a week ago."
Redman was a stroke behind Horschel for the lead as they made the turn together, and had birdie putts on 10, 12, 13, 16 and 18 and lipped out an eagle putt on 15, chance after chance after chance to take control of the tournament.
The 2017 U.S. Amateur winner from Raleigh, Leesville Road High and Clemson is getting closer and closer to his first PGA Tour win, and the points from his third-place tie with Simpson and two others at 18-under will give him an even better chance of advancing through the FedEx Cup playoffs starting next week.
Varner's wait for his first win has been far longer, and the East Carolina product from Gastonia looked like he might have his best chance this week after opening the tournament with an 8-under-par 62 on Thursday. But middling rounds on Friday and Saturday meant that his solid 65 on Sunday still left him four shots off the pace.
"Best finish of the season, best finish here, and it's in North Carolina, so I'm trending in the right direction for the playoffs," Varner said. "I don't know why I always do this, I can't start early and play well, but it is what it is."
Someone from North Carolina has won it in five of the past 16 years, a ratio too high to be mere coincidence. North Carolina, collectively, had three shots at it Sunday, with two chances for a debut win, just like Simpson in 2011. Not this year.
