If you think cricket star Glenn Maxwell’s sensational 201 runs from 128 deliveries during Australia’s victory over Afghanistan at the World Cup in India has no link to the PGA Tour event this week in Bermuda, think again.
PGA Tour winner Lucas Herbert was watching Maxwell’s innings on an iPad in the locker room while working out on Tuesday in Bermuda. Maxwell, a keen golfer who only days ago fell off the back of a golf cart while hitting the links on a World Cup rest day, lifted Australia from 7-91 past Afghanistan’s 5-291 to steal a three-wicket victory. That was despite suffering a back issue and severe cramping.
World No.65 Herbert, who claimed his first PGA Tour victory in Bermuda two years ago, said Maxwell’s innings was motivation for his own efforts to win a second title at the Port Royal Golf Course.
“It was fun to watch and I can definitely take something from it,” Herbert told Australian Golf Digest. “As an athlete, you can empathise with what was probably running through his head. Australia needed 60 off 60 balls and Maxwell’s body was not doing what he wanted. The odds stacked were against him. To get in that frame of mind to will yourself across the line, that’s inspiring to me because if I’m in contention on Sunday I will have to do something similar.”
Herbert missed last year’s title defence in Bermuda due to attending a wedding. But the 27-year-old’s return to the property this week brought back vivid memories of his final round in 2021, when he shot a two-under 69 in ferocious wind to claim victory by one.
“We spent most of the practice round today talking about the shots I hit that day,” Herbert said. “There are moments and shots that feel like they were yesterday.”
Herbert, who finished T-31 at the PGA Tour event in Cabo, Mexico, last week, is one of five Australians in the field in Bermuda.
World No.45 Adam Scott is the highest-ranked Australian and returns to Bermuda for the first time since winning the 2013 Grand Slam of Golf at the same course. He was eligible for that 36-hole match-up of the year’s four major winners, an event now defunct, having claimed the Masters that year.Â
The reasons for Scott’s return to Bermuda are simple: he was in Boston announcing his place on Rory McIlroy’s Boston Commons team for next year’s TGL simulator golf league; and he has played just two events (a missed cut at the Japan Open and a T-41 at the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship outside Tokyo) since August.
Scott wants to be in form when he arrives Down Under later in November for the summer of golf. He’ll play in the Australian PGA, Australian Open and Cathedral Invitational.
“I was close by [to Bermuda] in Boston; this time of year I’m really not around the east coast [of the US] normally, but there was the TGL announcement for Boston Common golf,” he said. “That was great fun to be at Fenway Park yesterday for the day and see every bit of it.
“Also, I’m playing in Australia in just a couple of weeks’ time. After a fairly quiet period at the back end of the year, it’s a good time to get going again, not only try and play well this week but get ready to be going in Australia. And of course I feel like I’ve played fairly solid all year and not got results. I’m not going to get results being on the couch at home.”
Scott also sits 85th in the FedEx Cup Fall points standings and will need a hot result to lift himself into the top 60 who secure starts in the first two Signature events (formerly named “designated” events) on the PGA Tour in 2024. They are The Sentry (January 4-7) on the Hawaiian island of Maui and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (February 1-4).
“It would be nice to get a result going on the PGA Tour before next season starts and try and improve my standings and get a position in a couple of these signature events,” Scott said. “But it would be so much better to go out and win a tournament this week and get some result out of the work I’ve put into the game and the changes I’ve made this year and go into next year full of confidence.”
Also in the Bermuda field are Harrison Endycott, Cameron Percy and Greg Chalmers.
