Lucas Herbert Secures PGA Tour Card With Victory in Bermuda

LUCAS HERBERT saw his life change forever with victory in the Bermuda Championship at the Princess Hamilton and Port Royal Golf Course, his first victory on the PGA Tour.

He has been travelling around the world with caddie Nick Pugh, physio Luke Thomas and swing coach Dom Azzopardi and has enjoyed considerable success on the European Tour. But this is a different league.

“We have a lot of fun traveling all together,” said Herbert. “We’re all quite different personalities and different characters, which makes it a lot of fun, as well. But to be honest, this week we actually kind of had a discussion about maybe toning it down a little bit.”

By shooting 2-under 69 in ferociously difficult wind and finishing at 15-under 269 to beat Patrick Reed (65) and Danny Lee (71) by one, Herbert won the $1,170,000 prize, earned PGA Tour status for two years and picked up 500 FedExCup points.

“The next 12 months are going to be really cool,” said Herbert, who came into the week ranked 57th in the world. “This win gets me into The Masters and the Sentry Tournament of Champions. It’s going to be lots of fun.

"But I think the next few days we’ll sit back and think and celebrate.”

The tournament got under way with 25-30 m.p.h. wind and sideways rain and it ended in a similar fashion, though fortunately, Herbert and his competitors were told to “stay in place” two hours into the final round while the rain hammered down and 40 mph. gusts swept over the island.

The stoppage came right after Herbert hit a shot that quite possibly could have cost him his victory, a 3-iron into the par-3 eighth. It came down just in-bounds and Herbert took advantage of the break with a wonderful up-and-down from about 55 yards.

“Par was an unbelievable score there,” said Herbert. “That probably was part of what set me up the rest of the round.”

Even when he bogeyed the par-4 ninth, Herbert was 14-under, just one behind Lee, his playing competitor. No matter that Reed, six groups ahead, was headed into the house at -14, Herbert sensed that it was match play with Lee and the third member of the pairing, Taylor Pendrith, who had led by three through 54 holes.

Herbert watched everything go his way coming home. Lee went double-bogey, bogey, bogey at the most difficult stretch - Nos. 12-13-14 - and Herbert played them birdie-bogey-birdie.

Herbert won the Dubai Desert Classic in 2020, then, with Pugh on the bag, he won the Irish Open at Mount Juliet over the summer.