Lucas Herbert

Last year at the Irish Open, the 26-year-old Australian captured his second career DPWT title in wire-to-wire fashion, opening with a 64 and following up with three more subpar rounds to beat Rikard Karlberg by three strokes. “I will never forget that feeling of looking down at the trophy and seeing my name alongside some of the greats of the game,” he said. “It started an amazing period for me, and I now feel ready to kick on to achieve even more success.” On the season, Herbert has made just one DPWT start that wasn’t a major or a WGC event, finishing T-18 at the Dubai Desert Classic in January. He’s made 16 starts on the PGA Tour, making eight cuts with two top 10s including a win at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, where he finished at 15-under 269, one better than Danny Lee and Patrick Reed. This week marks Herbert’s fourth start in the Irish Open, where he’s never missed the cut and finished T-7 in 2020. 

The Aussie, a first-time member (not a rookie), is making his fourth appearance, missing the cut two tries ago and posting T71 in the other two, including last year at Kiawah Island. Today's 68, which tied for the second-best lap in the more difficult afternoon session, featured six birdies against three bogeys, losing 0.719 strokes off-the-tee but gaining 1.378 on approach, 1.369 around, and 2.805 on-the-green. Afterward (link below): "I feel kind of comfortable here. This reminds me of some golf back home on the Sand Belt, Peninsula Kingswood for the guys in Australia listening." Overall, the one-time TOUR winner (2022 Bermuda) has contested eight majors, missed four cuts, and his best finish is a T31 at the 2021 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. "I've played enough of these major championships now where I feel like I know what it is that I need to do to play well. I haven't been able to play the way I would have liked in the majors I've played so far, but feel like I've got more of an understanding..." 

The Aussie made quick work of 18-seed Tony Finau yesterday and kept his foot on the gas today with group favorite, Xander Schauffele. "I played a lot of amateur golf with Xander and I feel like he's obviously had a quicker rise than I did to the PGA TOUR and to that top 10 in the world, but I felt like back seven or eight years ago we probably had similar games and I feel like I'm getting somewhere near where he is. So I didn't feel super out of place playing against him." Today's round wouldn't have impressed in stroke play (3 bogeys and a double) but he applied plenty of hole-by-hole pressure as he lead after six holes compared to four for Schauffele. Herbert is now in the driver's seat heading into day three but he will need to get the job done against 56-seed Takumi Kanaya (1-1-0) who won his match against Tony Finau today. The latter has no chance of advancing but the other three still have a shot, depending on how things go tomorrow.

The 26-year-old Aussie got off to a strong start with birdies at 1 and 5 with three pars in between. Finau chipped away at that lead with back-to-back holes won but then Finau faded with three bogeys over a five-hole stretch and Herbert took advantage. While this may be Herbert's match play debut as a pro, he is not too far removed from his amateur playing days, "Yeah, we played a lot of match play in Australia growing up, whether it be playing golf in Melbourne for Commonwealth or whether it was amateur events where we were getting into match play format or we played interstate series games, as well. We did play a lot of match play as juniors. It's just quite a different format." Next up for Herbert is a Thursday showdown with 7-seed Xander Schauffele (1-0-0). The winner of that match will be in control of Group 7.