New dad Piller getting over FedExCup heartbreak

Twelve FedExCup points.

That was the difference between Martin Piller regaining his PGA TOUR card for 2018-19 and having to piece together a schedule across two Tours, hoping to play well when he got the opportunities to do so.

“I don’t know if I’m over it now,” Piller admits. “Obviously I’m beyond it, but you look back and think, ‘man, it’s a matter of a few points,’ which is literally one shot somewhere. That can make you a little crazy at times. I don’t know if I’ll get past it. It still kind of stings knowing you were that close to retaining your card.”

But Piller, who has teed it up in one Web.com Tour event this year along with six PGA TOUR tournaments, is trying not worry much about his status for this year – he knows he’ll play a lot and has confidence on TOUR while also being a past champion on the Web.com Tour – since he and his wife, LPGA Tour star Gerina, welcomed their first child last May.

That, Piller says of his son, AJ, has allowed the two professional golfers to get their minds off golf when home, which can be a good thing.

“They don’t really understand anything other than food, sleep, and poop,” says Piller with a laugh.

Piller says having AJ at home doesn’t mean he’s not OK when he’s not playing his best – he still gets frustrated and wants to be as good as he possibly can be – but it’s nice to come home and see him.

Gerina is making her return to action on the LPGA Tour this week after more than a year away, and she says Martin has been an “amazing” dad.

“He is so excited to do everything. We were in the hospital from Thursday to Tuesday, and I didn't change a diaper until we got home on Tuesday,” says Gerina. “He may not know how to do things but he's not shy of learning or jumping right in there.

“I know AJ just loves him to death, and it's awesome to see your husband be a dad and just be a family. It's really special.”

Piller is home this week in Texas after not getting into The Honda Classic field and with no Web.com Tour on the schedule. It’s the first time he’s been home in three weeks, and it’ll be the first time alone with AJ for a stretch of time, with Gerina playing in Singapore.

“She’s been practicing and working out every day the last two months. She’s been ready to go,” he says.

Piller, too, is eager to get back to action – but whether that’s on the PGA TOUR or Web.com Tour remains to be seen.

He admits he has a lot bouncing around in his head with respect to his schedule moving forward. If he plays well in a Web.com Tour event, or if he wins, he may end up staying on the Web.com Tour for the balance of the year to try to earn his TOUR card via The 25.

But if he plays well for a couple of weeks on the PGA TOUR, he might try to regain a TOUR card by placing in the top 125 on the FedExCup standings.

“Playing well always fixes everything. That’s the easy answer. I’ll be bouncing around a little bit, but I still look at it as: I’ll get a lot of opportunities to play a lot of tournaments,” he says.

Piller knows it’ll be a balancing act through 2019, but he’s been in worse situations, he says. It wasn’t long ago when he had only conditional status on the Web.com Tour.

Although he says there is indeed a sense of urgency to play good golf, the PGA TOUR and Web.com Tour schedules are about to come around to a lot of places he’s played well at in the past.

“You have to play well. You’re going to play, there’s no doubt, but you definitely have to maximize the opportunities,” he says. “You can’t be pressing out there and think, ‘oh I need to play well this week.’ If that line of thinking worked you’d think like that every week. You can’t just make yourself be in contention.”

Piller was in contention a couple of times on the TOUR in 2018 – he had two top-5 results early in the year – but missed his last two cuts to finish at No. 126 on the FedExCup standings.

But leave it to a fellow professional golfer to give him some perspective on the year-that-was.

Gerina told him not to define his season on just the last few tournaments, because he could have made one more shot up back in January or October.

“When he goes through things like that, I think it also helps me,” she says. “Like he grows, and I grow, because it's just a learning experience and we both get to do it together.”

Their twosome has become three, and both are back to work. And although it’s not the ideal situation for Piller, he’s chosen to look on the positive side of things. More than anything, he’s eager for what the rest of the season holds.

“I look at every week as an opportunity to win a golf tournament,” he says. “Whether it’s on the Web.com Tour or the PGA TOUR.”