[Picture: Golf NSW]
Australian golfer Lucas Herbert will channel his energy into qualifying for the US Open and Open Championship after issuing a classy response to being overlooked for an invitation to the PGA Championship next week at Quail Hollow.
Herbert has been in a rich vein of form around the world, having won the 2024 NSW Open over Cam Smith before contending in the final group at the DP World Tour’s Australian Open in December. This year, he has been red-hot on LIV with three top-four finishes this season, including a T-2 (courtesy of a final-round 61) at LIV Golf Mexico City recently.
Yet when the PGA of America handed out invitations this week to the year’s second major beginning next Thursday in Charlotte, the Bendigo native was not among them. LIV star Dustin Johnson, a two-time major winner whose exemption into all four majors for his 2020 Masters win expired this year, was invited. His fellow LIV players, Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin and Spain’s David Puig, and PGA Tour star Rickie Fowler, all got the call up. LIV Golf’s Joaquin Niemann had received an early special invitation.
The PGA of America uses the official world golf rankings to issue invitations to fill out the field. Herbert was not too disappointed having anticipated missing out.
“I did my schedule end of last year right around Christmas and I had a feeling I wouldn’t need to worry about the PGA because at that point I was ranked about 200 in the world and I was playing one or two, world ranking events between then and now,” he told Australian Golf Digest over the phone Thursday. “But as I said to [Flushing It Golf], we knew when we signed up with LIV that majors would be the issue. They [major championship organisers] have the right to invite, or not invite, whoever they want.
“It’s a tricky one. I feel like for the majors, you should be earning your invite in some capacity. It’s unfortunate because I’m playing great and I would’ve loved an opportunity to test my game against the best players in the world at Quail Hollow. But there are avenues for guys to qualify for majors and I just didn’t play well enough in those avenues [essentially, world rankings events in Australia]. But we’ll just have to try and qualify for the US Open or the British Open.”
Members of LIV Golf have limited opportunities to earn Official World Golf Rankings points given their events do not receive points from the organisation. As such, plenty of LIV golfers have fallen well outside the top 100, which is the standard number for qualification for the PGA Championship. Although, Johnson is ranked 751st and has just two top-10 finishes in majors since he joined LIV in 2022 (that year’s Open at St Andrews and the 2023 US Open).
DataGolf is used by many fans and media as a more accurate ranking of the world’s best pros given it factors in LIV events. On that index, Herbert (44) is one spot below Puig (43) and well above McKibbin (102). McKibbin plays on Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII team and while he was within the OWGR top 100 earlier this season, his current place is 115th.
Herbert had a decent record at the PGA Championship and finished T-13 at the 2022 edition at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is currently fifth on the LIV Golf points standings and is in the Narita area of Japan playing International Series Japan this week on the Asian Tour’s schedule.
He was asked by popular golf social media account Flushing It about the PGA invitation. “When we came to LIV we knew that the majors were going to be the sticking point and it was going to be the hard thing to deal with,” Herbert told Flushing It. “But it has been difficult to watch Augusta the last two years and know that I was never going to get there with the way everything is set up at the moment, there’s no clear pathway to get to Augusta.”
Instead, the 29-year-old will focus on the two Open majors to distract himself from the PGA Championship – that and the fact he is heading back to Australia after Japan for just over a week to catch up with friends and play some Melbourne Sandbelt golf.
Herbert has one avenue to qualify for the US Open and two pathways for the Open Championship. Firstly, 36-hole final qualifying for the US Open which he intends on teeing up in. And for the Open Championship, there’s a route through LIV. The R&A will award the leading player, not already exempt, within the top five of the LIV individual standings through its Dallas event (June 27) a start at Royal Portrush in July. Herbert is within reach at fifth on the LIV standings.
“I’ve got a good chance to try and qualify for the British Open through LIV and to final qualifying for the US Open,” Herbert told Australian Golf Digest. “Oakmont is a a great venue and love to play there. The way it’s been talked up, it could be one of the hardest US open tests we’ve seen in the modern era.”
His last effort for the UK major would be to tee up in 36-hole qualifying for the Open Championship in early July and he’s already planned – if he needs the option – to tee up at the West Lancashire Links site just outside Liverpool. Helping that quest would be the fact his caddie, Englishman Nick Pugh, hails from that area of England and knows the “West Lancs” course well.
“It’s always special to play in an Open Championship so I think I’m flying in straight from Dallas, the night before, to play the 36 hole qualifier at West Lancs,” he said.
But, as Herbert said, hopefully he doesn’t even need to do that.
