Ready for Her Close-Up

Herndon initially forced herself to not look at the thing. But she couldn't help herself. She just had to see it. She began flipping through pages. When she reached the spread, each passing page stung her like a pinprick. She finally couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't even hold the magazine in her hands. With a violent snap of the wrist, she flung it clear across the room - and instantly broke down. "And every time I talked about it afterwards, or thought about it," she says, "it would really upset me." Oddly, rather than dumping the issue in the nearest garbage can, she saved it, and, somewhat masochistically, continues to peep it every now and then. "I still feel a twinge of pain every time I see it," she says, releasing a lengthy sigh. "It doesn't make me happy. It's the little wound that won't quite heal. I guess it'll never go away until I win a major event and you guys put me on the cover, until I do something so great that you can't ignore me anymore."

In two full years on the Classic Tour, and despite working full-time as an operations manager for a travel agency, Herndon had floated under the radar to within striking distance of the best dozen women players in the world. And then at October's U.S. Open, Herndon had a full-blown coming-out party, finally breaking into the TV rounds and finishing third. Her wins included a 9-8 winner's-bracket semifinal victory over top-ranked Allison Fisher, punctuated by an ecstatic leap in the air just before the final 9 ball dropped. The victory and her subsequent finish were strong statements to the Classic Tour faithful, especially in light of the dramatically improved level of play in the WPBA over just the last couple of years. And the implicit message was, "I can beat anybody. Deal with it."

Until the U.S. Open tapes air on ESPN this year, Herndon is probably the best woman player no one's ever heard of. "Like the other day, I was playing with [male pro] Shawn Putnam," she says, "and afterwards he says to me, 'How could you play this good and I don't know who you are?' I didn't know how to answer him." Three times she had come within a hair of making it into the semifinals and playing on TV, finishing fifth in the 2002 BCA Open, the 2003 San Diego Classic, and the 2004 Midwest Classic. "I'm determined to crack the Top 10 by the end of this year," she says, "and whatever I've wanted in my life, if I set my mind to it, I've gotten."

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