‘Unbelievable’ – Stunning major breakthrough

The 25-year-old from Bendigo, who won the Irish Open on the European Tour earlier this year, is now set to break in to the world top 50 which would earn him a start at Augusta after defeating 2018 Masters winner Patrick Reed and New Zealand’s Danny Lee by a shot to secure the Bermuda Championship.

“I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable,” Herbert said after his win at Port Royal Golf Course.

“Definitely gets me into the Masters? Okay. I mean, 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.

“I don‘t even want to try to put expectations on anything right now.”

The victory also secures Herbert, who earned his first PGA Tour card earlier this year, secures the Victorian a two-year-playing exemption.

“So I think the next few days we’ll sit back and think and celebrate and then, yeah, reset some plans going forward as to what our goals are going to be and how we want to play in some of these awesome tournaments that we’re going to get into,” he said.

“Getting to play in — we just talked about Kapalua, getting to play in a few of these events that I‘ve watched growing up on TV, it’s just going to be a cool experience. No matter how I play, it’s just going to be phenomenal to play in those tournaments. It’s going to be lots of fun.”

Herbert mixed four birdies with two bogeys in his closing round to post a 15-under 72-hole total as unheralded American third-round leader Taylor Penrith crashed with a horror five-over 76.

Reed reeled off four birdies in the last six holes in a six-under 65 to share second spot with New Zealand‘s Danny Lee, who couldn’t manage better than even par in his final round.

“ Just so hard out there today and I just, it was one of those ones you couldn‘t even let yourself kind of get ahead and think that you‘ve won the tournament early because conditions were just so brutal that you could have hit a shot anywhere at any time offline and it was just, it was just good to survive I guess is probably the way to describe it,” Herbert said after collecting the winner’s purse of $1.55 million.

“It was probably more of a survival mode, just try and get yourself into position off the tee and in the fairway hopefully and in the middle of the greens and just, you know, try not to put too much pressure on the short game because, yeah, it was just obviously not easy out there.

“Obviously it made everything play tougher and I really enjoyed the challenge out there, to be honest. It‘s not easy playing in that wind and weather. As long as you keep the right attitude and smile and laugh and just enjoy that challenge.”

Originally published as Australian Lucas Herbert has had a million dollar payday at the Bermuda Championship and is on track for the Masters