Australia’s Lucas Herbert delivered a stunning opening round performance, shooting 8-under-par 64 to claim a two-shot advantage after Thursday’s first round of LIV Golf Virginia at Trump National DC in Potomac Falls, Virginia. The highlight of Herbert’s round came with an eagle on the par-5 second hole.
The 30-year-old golfer has claimed victories across multiple professional tours including the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and Asian Tour, but remains in pursuit of his inaugural LIV Golf championship during his third season with the circuit.
Herbert admitted he was genuinely shocked by his exceptional first-day showing.
“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 and struggling with a back issue for a couple of weeks and struggling with my game definitely the last few events,” Herbert explained.
“I think over the last 12 months I’ve developed some habits that I wasn’t happy with, and I’m just sort of starting to get my teeth into fixing those. Yeah, I think 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 after the first round.”
Starting at the 15th hole due to LIV’s shotgun format, Herbert recorded birdies on holes 16 and 17 before reaching the second green in two shots. He then sank a 15-foot putt for eagle.
Herbert’s momentum continued with an impressive stretch where he collected five birdies across six holes (numbers 6-11), solidifying his position atop the standings.
Though many LIV competitors are gearing up for next week’s PGA Championship, Herbert won’t be participating in that major. Nevertheless, he could earn entry into the U.S. Open by maintaining his position this week, as a victory would likely place him among the top three in individual season rankings by May 18, earning automatic U.S. Open qualification.
“For about two seconds, I wondered whether a win would be enough to do that,” Herbert noted. “Other than that, no. I got to where I am today pretty much not really caring where I was on the leaderboard, just trying to make progress in my game and my golf swing and being in a good frame of mind hitting shots.”
Four players share second place at 6-under 66: England’s Tyrrell Hatton, Australia’s Marc Leishman, Spain’s Sergio Garcia, and Colombia’s Sebastian Munoz. Hatton appears to be peaking at an ideal time, coming off a third-place finish at last month’s Masters Tournament.
“I think my major record has been horrific, to be honest, with the amount of majors I’ve played,” Hatton acknowledged. “It’s good to play well, and hopefully I can finish well here this week and take momentum into next week.”
The strong performances by Herbert and Leishman have positioned their all-Australian squad Ripper GC at the top of team competition standings after round one. At 15-under par, they hold a four-stroke advantage over Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team.
“We’ve been having a lot of fun,” commented Leishman, whose Cameron Smith-captained team currently leads the season-long team standings by fewer than two points. “Obviously, the start we got off to was pretty pleasing as a team. Certainly excited for the rest of the season. I think all the boys are playing well. We’ve bonded really well as a team. We have a lot of fun together off the golf course. We’re really competitive on the course.”
