Lucas Herbert: A team champion with Ripper on his LIV debut
Lucas Herbert knew by the end of his first season with LIV Golf that he had found the perfect home.
The 29-year-old from Bendigo in Victoria, Australia, signed a contract to join the tour in 2024 and teamed up with Cameron Smith, captain of all-Aussie squad Ripper GC.
Generating enthusiasm for golf in Australia was one of the motivating factors in Herbert’s decision to join LIV, so it was fitting that he celebrated his first team win with his countrymen in Adelaide and that Ripper were crowned team champions by the season’s end.
Speaking on Fairway To Heaven, LIV Golf’s official podcast, Herbert revealed he’d been amazed to see the impact LIV Golf was already having back home before he signed up.
“I went on a boys’ trip with 15 of my mates and we talked about LIV a lot,” he said.
“Then I played the Australian events [the Australian PGA Championship and the Australian Open] about two weeks before I got the phone call from LIV, and I saw so many Ripper GC hats at those two tournaments.
“They weren’t even LIV events and I thought ‘this is this is really moving the needle in Australia’.
“It was having the biggest impact on our golf scene back home, so it fitted in with my values.”
Strong results at an early age
Strong results at an early age
Herbert is one of LIV Golf’s younger players, turning professional in 2015 and collecting three wins on the European Tour [DP World Tour] and one on the PGA Tour before joining LIV.
His first success was at the 2020 Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour and it came in dramatic fashion after he walked out for the final day six shots off the lead.
With ruthless consistency he finished nine under after shooting four consecutive under- par rounds before beating Christiaan Bezuidenhout at the second playoff hole.
Herbert also won around $530,000 in prize money and went on to collect a similar figure by topping the leaderboard throughout the Irish Open the following year.
That was July 2021 and within three months Herbert was celebrating his maiden victory on the PGA Tour, winning the Bermuda Championship.
It was just his third event on the tour, and came on the back of missing the cut in his first two tournaments.
At Port Royal everything fell into place and Herbert held his nerve to shoot a final-round 69 to beat future LIV golfers Patrick Reed and Danny Lee by one stroke to claim the $1.17million prize money.
His fourth and final pro victory before joining LIV came on the DP World Tour in April 2023, where another playoff win landed him the ISPS Handa Championship in Japan.
That included firing an impressive 63 on the second day and winning the playoff at the second hole to leave Aaron Cockerill in the runner-up spot.
Playing The Masters in 2022
Playing The Masters in 2022
Herbert has appeared in all four Majors but says his one outing at The Masters stands tall in his memory, despite missing the cut on his debut.
“Augusta, there’s just something special about the place, whether you are top 10 or finish dead last,” he says.
That same year he achieved his best result in the Majors with a T13 at the PGA Championship. He has played six times at the PGA’s, five at The Open and appeared four times in the US Open.
Before leaving the PGA Tour to move to LIV, Herbert had achieved a best placing of 40th in the official world golf rankings in January 2022.
A LIV Golf contract and a winning team
A LIV Golf contract and a winning team
With Lucas Herbert on board, Ripper celebrated wins in Adelaide and Singapore and in September’s showdown in Dallas, he birdied four of the last five holes to help them clinch the 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship and the $20,000,000 prize.
It is the team aspect that he has enjoyed the most and feels it brings a new level of excitement and drama to the game.
“That team environment, I just I don’t think anyone really understands what that means, what that feels like and how much you really care about it until you’re involved in it,” Herbert told Fairway To Heaven, LIV Golf’s official podcast.
“On your own, if you were tied 25th on a Sunday with five holes to play, ordinarily there wouldn’t be a lot of interest in that.
“But when the team’s tied for second and every birdie matters and you’re trying not to make any bogeys to hurt the guys, all of a sudden those last five holes become more nerve-wracking than in the individual tournaments.”
The team event in Dallas concluded a powerful second half to Herbert’s debut LIV season as he had achieved three T6 finishes in the final six events to earn 25th place in the individual standings, just outside the Lock Zone.
Lucas Herbert’s life away from the course
Lucas Herbert’s life away from the course
Having not touched a guitar since primary school, Herbert rekindled his interest in playing during the Covid lockdowns and a new love affair began.
By the time the LIV golfers assembled for the final individual event of 2024 in Chicago, Herbert admitted he had just added another guitar to his growing collection.
“I think I’ve got eight now,” he told Fairway To Heaven.
“A lot of the time my brain just needs something to do, I struggle to sit there and not do anything.
“So it’s a great distraction for me to get away from my phone, to get away from life and do something that’s quite creative, quite artistic.”
Herbert is not married. His home base in the States is Orlando with girlfriend Erica, who he met on a dating app.
“She was in marketing before she moved to Florida,” Herbert says.
“Now she’s traveling round with me, she did a certificate in personal training and is really into fitness and loves giving programs to help people.
“She’s probably fitter than me.”
Herbert has a popular Instagram account @herbznspices_ where he posts regular updates about how he’s getting on during LIV tournaments and also gives us a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes with his team-mates at 2024 Team Champions Ripper GC.
Herbert has a reputation as a dead-eye on the greens and amateur players are keen to copy his putting grip.
The key to the address is to keep the grip pressure light so the pace of the stroke will be slow and easy.
The stroke itself is more of a sweep, with two counts going back and one forward, so that the putter collects the ball rather than clipping it.
At the start of his career he hit lots of draws and he has worked hard to complement that with some fades.
With the driver, he tends to lean back a little to the right before launching his backswing but is physically strong and has a very athletic approach through his hips and knees, flexible and powerful as he swings through, generally gaining a good distance with the ball.
At the PGA Championship last May, Herbert’s bag was stocked with goodies from his long-term favorites TaylorMade.
Their Qi10 LS driver (10.5 degrees @9) sported a Project X HZRDUS Smoke Green 70 6.5 TX shaft.
His 3 and 5-woods and hybrid were all Qi10 Tour with a variety of shafts. The 3-wood (13.5 degrees @12.75) had a Mitsubishi Diamana DF 80 TX shaft, the 5- wood (18 degrees @ 17.25) a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90 TX shaft and the hybrid a Fujikara Pro Tour Spec 115 X.
His TaylorMade 4-iron was a P770 UDI and 6 to 9-irons the P7TW, all with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts.
Uniquely he doesn’t feel the need to have a 5-iron in his bag. Taylor Made MG4 wedges had the same shafts as his irons on all the clubs (48-09SB, 50-09SB, 56-12TW, 60).
His trusted putter was a Scotty Cameron GoLo DB5.
