The youngest Ripper is ready for a big moment in Adelaide

ADELAIDE, South Australia – From a seniority perspective, Lucas Herbert is certainly the No. 4 player on his Ripper GC team. He’s the only one in his 20s – specifically 29 – and he’s about 2-1/2 years younger than his captain, Cameron Smith.

From a golf resume perspective, his accomplishments aren’t to the level of Smith, a major champion, or Marc Leishman, who has 13 professional wins, six of those coming on the PGA Tour. Herbert’s five pro wins is one more than Matt Jones, but Jones has two Australian Open titles to his name, along with two PGA Tour wins.

And from a LIV Golf perspective, Herbert is the newbie, having joined the league just a year ago after Jed Morgan was relegated. Smith, Leishman and Jones have been together since the middle of the inaugural 2022 season.

But while it’s easy to label Herbert as the Rippers’ “No. 4” guy, his arrival proved to be crucial to the team’s success in 2024, not only in the regular season when they won back-to-back events in Adelaide and Singapore but especially at the season-ending Dallas Team Championship.

Herbert’s semifinal singles win over Fireballs GC’s David Puig helped the team advance to the championship tier, and his 3-under 69 on the final day at Maridoe was the team’s second-lowest score en route to winning LIV Golf’s most coveted team trophy.

The offseason was equally productive for the Bendigo, Victoria-born Herbert, who returned to Australia and outdueled Smith to win the NSW Open while also adding a top-5 finish at the Australian Open.

He maintained that momentum going into last week’s LIV Golf season opener at Riyadh. His 14-under total was the best on the team, and his tie for fourth was his best individual finish. Meanwhile, the Rippers tied for second on the team leaderboard, a terrific springboard into this week’s title defense in Adelaide.

With LIV Golf’s new scoring format in which all four scores count in every round for each team, it will be the No. 4 player who often dictates how teams fare. In previous seasons, the No. 4 could afford to have a poor first or second round, knowing his score could be thrown out. But there’s no hiding anymore.

Herbert, never one to hide anyway, will be a vital piece to how the Rippers perform this week and the rest of the season.

“I think when you get into a situation where four scores count, you definitely don’t want a boat anchor at the back of the team that’s going to shoot 80 and drag the team down,” Herbert said. “It felt like I was that a little bit on Sunday early last year, but towards the end of the season, everyone started finding their groove a bit and it got to a point where we didn’t have anyone that was dragging the chain.

“Everyone was playing really nicely. We’re in form, we’re inspiring each other to play better every week. The money games were getting really exciting. So, I think if we can just produce that more throughout this season, we’re laughing.”

A year ago, Herbert was 25th in the season-long Individual Championship and was less than one point away from finishing inside the top-24 Lock Zone. It didn’t really matter how close he was, as Smith had no intention of changing his championship roster.

And while he may fit some of the definitions of a No. 4 player, Herbert could also be considered the team’s third-best player, even its second-best at times. After all, he did finish with more points last year than Jones, the only Ripper player who has started every LIV Golf event.

The true beauty of the Rippers is that they have no weak spots.

“Personally, I think our worst player is better than every other team’s worst player,” Herbert said. “Some weeks, some guys will play the No. 1 spot, and some guys play the No. 4 spot. Cam’s the standout player, but then there just doesn’t feel like a weakness on our team. It feels like we’re all pretty solid player who are pretty consistent, week in and week out.”

If there’s one week that the Rippers want to be more than just consistent, it’s here at The Grange. Last year’s team victory over Stinger GC in LIV Golf’s first team playoff has reduced some of the urgency to produce a trophy in front of their home fans. On the flip side, expectation levels are higher as the defending champs. What will they do for an encore?

With LIV Golf Adelaide moved up in the schedule from April to February, the Rippers collectively made a concerted effort to be more prepared going into this season, knowing that they couldn’t play their way into form. Their performance in Riyadh was a good sign that their urgent offseason workload is paying off.

“Our weakness is probably our inability to come off longer breaks,” Herbert said. “It just takes a while to get the wheels spinning for us. That was evident last year. We sort of struggled at the start of the season, then won Adelaide and won Singapore and got on a bit of roll from there. If we can just get off to a really good start, then we’re going to be hard to catch.”

The goal this week is simple: Sweep both trophies. Herbert would love nothing more than a double celebration on the podium Sunday night. He might even drink out of both shoes.