Pelted by rain and whipping wind, Lucas Herbert tried to keep dry under a palm tree on Thursday after bogeying two of his first three holes of the opening round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. “We’re in for a long week,” he said to himself.
Well, the meteorologists were right for once about the forecast, but Herbert should avoid the prediction game. The 25-year-old Australian who expected to be heading home on Friday with a missed cut, did better than that. He overcame the elements to shoot a final-round 2-under 69 at Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton, Bermuda, and win his first PGA Tour title.
In just his third start since earning his Tour card, Herbert did the best job of any of the contenders on Sunday of dealing with another day of nasty conditions, which forced tee times to be moved up and a short weather delay.
“I love playing when it’s really hard,” he said. “I think it makes you be that little bit better and it just eliminates the guys who maybe aren’t as good. I just enjoyed the struggle out there as well today. There was times where I was nearly sitting on the ground behind an umbrella and just embracing it all that was so much fun.”
Herbert entered the final round trailing by four strokes, but holed a bunch of lengthy birdie putts, including at Nos. 12 and 14 — a 35-foot left-to-right bender — to finish 15-under 269 and edge Patrick Reed and Danny Lee by one stroke. The birdie at 14 is one he won’t soon forget.
“I got over that putt on 14 and went, like this is your range, you’ve holed so many of these this week, like you’re probably going to hole this one as well,” Herbert recalled. “From the moment it left the putter, I was like, that’s not going to miss, that’s going in.”
Rolling his way into the lead.@LHGolf5 leads by 1 @Bermuda_Champ. pic.twitter.com/vO5UJZaIJM
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 31, 2021
Up ahead, Reed birdied four of the last six holes to grab the clubhouse lead and found the tough conditions to his liking.
“Might as well just throw the yardage books away today,” he said of playing in a howling wind. “I felt like it needed to be hard today for me to have a chance at this golf tournament.”
Reed picked up his first top-10 finish since the Memorial in early June, but his 65 was eclipsed for round of the day by Scott Stallings, who started Sunday 14 shots back before posting a bogey-free 9-under 62 to tie for fifth with 54-hole leader Taylor Pendrith. The Canadian, who shot 61 on Friday to assume the lead, failed to make a birdie on Sunday and stumbled to a 76.
“Lots of positives,” said Pendrith, a PGA Tour rookie. “It’s my best finish out here. It was a tough Sunday, which I guess I’ll learn a lot from that, but to have a good week was great.”
Having missed his previous two cuts, Herbert asked his coach, Dom Azzopardi, who he started working with at age 13, to fly from Australia to Bermuda for an emergency tuneup. They spent two weeks working primarily on his takeaway.
“To be honest, like Thursday and Friday this week I still didn’t 100 percent trust it, so it was really nice this weekend it felt like everything was matching up, what I felt like I was making a move at, the ball felt like it was coming out exactly as I thought, so it was good it turned out this week, for sure,” he said.
Herbert counted two previous victories on the European Tour, including at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in July. This title had the added benefit of earning him a spot in the Masters, and it also lifted him into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time.
“The next 12 months are going to be really cool. I’ve never played Augusta, so being able to play the Masters is going to be pretty cool,” he said. “I don’t even want to try to put expectations on anything right now. Too easy when you win to think you’re never going to not win again.”
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