Lucas Herbert of Australia eagled the par-5 second hole at Trump National DC on his way to an 8-under-par 64, staking himself to a two-shot lead after one round of LIV Golf Virginia on Thursday in Potomac Falls, Va.
Herbert, 30, has won on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Asian Tour but is still seeking his first LIV title in his third year with the league.
To hear Herbert tell it, he was frankly surprised at how well he performed on Day 1.
"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 said.
"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."
Herbert's opening hole in LIV's shotgun start was the 15th, and he managed birdies at Nos. 16 and 17 before reaching the green in two at No. 2. He holed his 15-foot eagle putt from there.
A five-birdie run in a six-hole stretch (Nos. 6-11) cemented his trajectory up the leaderboard.
While several LIV golfers are preparing for next week's PGA Championship, Herbert is not in the field for that one. However, Herbert could qualify for the U.S. Open if he holds on this week; he's projected to land in the top three of the individual season standings with a win, and the top three as of May 18 receive U.S. Open exemptions.
"For about two seconds, I wondered whether a win would be enough to do that," Herbert said. "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."
Tied for second at 6-under 66 are Englishman Tyrrell Hatton, Australian Marc Leishman, Sergio Garcia of Spain and Sebastian Munoz of Colombia. Hatton is building at the right time, less than a month after he tied for third at the Masters.
"I think my major record has been horrific, to be honest, with the amount of majors I've played," Hatton said. .".. It's good to play well, and hopefully I can finish well here this week and take momentum into next week."
Herbert and Leishman have ensured the all-Australian Ripper GC lead the team standings after the first round, at 15 under and four shots ahead of Jon Rahm's Legion XIII.
"We've been having a lot of fun," said Leishman, whose team (captained by Cameron Smith) leads the season standings by less 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."
--Field Level Media
