Lucas Herbert turned an unlikely opening round into a stranglehold on LIV Golf Virginia at Trump National DC, following up his blind 8-under 64 in Round 1 with a 9-under 63 to surge to a six-shot 36-hole lead — a margin the Ripper GC player admitted he had never enjoyed in his career.
The Australian, who had not seen the front nine of the course before teeing off on Friday after a midweek illness, treated Saturday's media room arrival with disbelief.
"I don't think I've ever had a six-shot lead after 36 holes," Herbert said in his post-round press conference. "You're in uncharted territory here, Mike. Have you got any advice for me?"
Herbert birdied six of seven holes through the middle of his second round, a stretch he tried to describe without sounding boastful. "I don't know that there's a way that I can describe this is not going to sound super arrogant," he said. "It just things started coming to me easily. The shots that you would see into greens happened and worked the way that you saw them, and putts that you would read to break a certain way just did exactly what you kind of thought."
There was, he conceded, an out-of-body element to it. "Maybe even at times you'd hit a bad shot and you'd have judged it wrong, and the bad shot now becomes good. It was just one of those days, probably 36 holes — two of those days of things that probably just come easy. I'll probably try to enjoy it a little bit out there, because I was able to in the moment see that that was happening and just be able to sit back and appreciate it. This is pretty not normal."
The context makes the start even more remarkable. Herbert revealed on Friday that he had been "pretty sick earlier in the week," had managed only a back-nine pro-am loop on Thursday, and had teed off in Round 1 without ever having played the course's first nine holes. He has also been working through a back issue and a 12-month wrestle with his swing.
"I don't know that my expectations could have been any lower than what they were today, having not seen the golf course, feeling pretty under the weather," he said after Round 1. "My goal was to try and feel like I made some progress on those this week. Strangely here I am sitting here in front of you with a two-shot lead off the first round."
That two-shot margin has now ballooned to six. Asked how he plans to handle it on Sunday at Trump National, Herbert pointed back to the mindset that had loosened him up in the first place.
"I came into the week with very, very low expectations, so I think I'm probably going to try and stick to that," he said. "I want to go out there tomorrow and I want to make some golf swings that I don't think I've been able to make for 12 months. I want to make some progress and hit some shots, some better quality shots."
Herbert opened the LIV season with three top-10 finishes and two team wins for Ripper GC alongside Cam Smith, Marc Leishman and Matt Jones, before slipping in his last two starts. A win on Sunday would also keep him in contention for the U.S. Open spot earmarked for the leading non-exempt LIV player at the event — a possibility he has barely entertained.
"For about two seconds I wondered whether a win would be enough to do that," he said. "Other than that, no. I got to where I am today pretty much not really caring where I was on the leaderboard."