ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 6, 2022

Lucas Herbert

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. Just general comments about the week, your tournament debut, and best round of the week.

LUCAS HERBERT: I'm pretty proud of myself for today's round. It was very, very hot out there. Obviously, you can look on TV, and everyone's going to see it. There's no room to hit bad shots out there. You get pretty heavily punished if you get it offline or get your yardage into the green or whatnot.

Very, very proud of the way I played out there. Really proud to hopefully finish in the top ten first time here at Bay Hill. Yeah, it's been a bit of a slow start to the year, so it's good to sort of get a nice result in, hopefully build on some confidence going forward.

Q. Can you talk about the round highlighted by an eagle?

LUCAS HERBERT: Yeah, it kind of goes in, and you don't even realize that it's an eagle because you're just trying to hit it to the spots that you've kind of got to hit it to out there. You can't really attack at all. It's kind of just there's a spot to hit at, and that's just where you've got to hit it, and you just have to kind of get lucky. Obviously like I did with the putt, you roll in a really nice putt there.

That round could have been even par, it could have been 6-under, just depending on the different breaks you get throughout the round. Thankfully for me, it landed down 4-under. And I get a bit of a positive finish there, and I'm sitting pretty here in the clubhouse.

Q. Putting on your analyst hat for a second, is there a hole down the stretch you could see getting pretty dicey this afternoon as the leaders come in?

LUCAS HERBERT: 16, 17, 18 brutal. The tee is up on 17, but I don't think, if anyone hits it close there, they'll get a good shot. I think most guys are going to be going left of that pin, and those greens aren't taking any sort of spin. So you're going to do well to get it on the green there and have a look.

That pin's a long way right on 18. It's not until you stand there on the fairway and have a look at it, and you're like, oh, my God.

Look, the golf course is just not playing easy. I don't think there's any holes out there that just lock in birdies before you even hit a shot. Yeah, it's going to be kind of fun to watch now that I've finished the round, that's for sure.

Q. Do you plan to go watch it on TV somewhere?

LUCAS HERBERT: To be honest, I haven't made any plans. The last plan I made was the putt I hit on 18. We'll probably go get some food and sit around and have a think about it. A few of my friends are here this week, so I'll probably say hello to them. Just kind of de-stress a little bit from that last four hours.

Q. Any chance 2-under gets it done here?

LUCAS HERBERT: I doubt it would get it done. I thought maybe the putt on the last would give me a small hope for a playoff. There's just too many guys that are playing nicely ahead of me. You never know. If the wind is blowing nicely this afternoon, it's not a bad number to be sitting on in the clubhouse, right?

Q. Have you played with Scotty before?

LUCAS HERBERT: Scotty and I played a lot. I'm not sure we played a tournament round together. I know we've played a bunch of practice rounds together. When COVID hit, he came back to Australia. We live about ten minutes from each other. We played a bunch of golf there, had a few beers together. Yeah, pretty decent mates. That was good fun we had there too.

Q. The fact you came out and shot 4-under today, which is probably going to be at least two better than anybody else, and most likely on an average of the field, a lot more than that. What do you attribute today's round to?

LUCAS HERBERT: I think it's a bit of a combination of everything. Don, my coach, came over and just helped me with a bunch of technique stuff the last couple of weeks. Where it was like everything was kind of close at Phoenix and Honda, and I felt like I played better than two missed cuts. I didn't feel like I did a lot wrong. Unfortunately wasn't playing the weekend there.

So it didn't feel like it needed to be a big change from the way I was playing, but it doesn't surprise me to finish the way I did given -- even though the results weren't there leading up to it, the form felt like it was.

I think these conditions, Scotty and I were talking about the fact that these conditions suit Australians. We're used to just playing firm, fast, windy conditions, and I think that plays into our hand a lot.

It was just one of those days, you obviously watch Adam who doesn't miss a lot of shots. That obviously inspires you a little bit as well. Just a day where I played really nice as well. Everything kind of came together for me.

Q. You've got next week now. Have you played there?

LUCAS HERBERT: No, I haven't.

Q. So what do you hear about -- you must have talked to Scotty a little bit about next week's venue.

LUCAS HERBERT: Not a whole lot, to be honest. I've watched it on TV, so I kind of know where the holes go at least. It's going to be a whole different ballpark once you get out there and start looking at everything and figuring out how to play the place.

Watching it on TV over the years has played quite differently from year to year depending on whether they're happy with their greens on Monday or not. I'll kind of just take it on face value when I get there next week. Hopefully, it will be great to get out there and play a practice round with someone like Scotty or the guys that have played there a lot just to pick their brains on it a little bit too.

Q. What period was it that you and Scotty kind of hung out during COVID?

LUCAS HERBERT: After THE PLAYERS, we shot down there for COVID. He flew back to Australia. So when we had that three or four months there where we didn't have any events going, we were both back in Australia.

Q. What city?

LUCAS HERBERT: So this is Sunshine Coast in Queensland. We kind of ended up -- a few of the guys, a lot of the Senior Tour guys who were normally playing Seniors Pro-Ams, had nothing to do too. We almost kind of started our own tour. Not quite at the Saudi level, but we were playing 100 bucks each. 100 bucks in each Friday to all the courses around in the local area. It was pretty good.

We were playing with like amateurs that were up there at the time, veteran Tour pros, Tour pros that are sort of trying to make it on Tour, and guys like Scotty. We had a really nice mix. It was so casual and so laid back. I thought it was great. I actually really enjoyed that COVID lockdown.

Q. Who were some of the kind of other notable names that we may recognize?

LUCAS HERBERT: I remember Shae Wools-Cobb played. He's a pro. I think he's playing a little bit in Asia now but on the rise. Glenn Joyner organized it. I'm going to call him a veteran Tour pro. I don't care. He's going to hate that. There's a lot of guys like that. I don't specifically remember a lot of the names although that's going to offend a lot of people.

Yeah, it was just a bunch of club pros, teaching pros, touring pros, guys that play in pro many as. It was a nice mix. Some days we'd have 25, 30 playing.

Q. What were some of the different courses you guys played in? Did you keep any kind of standings or anything?

LUCAS HERBERT: We kind of had handicaps. So like Scotty was plus 6. I was plus 5. Some of the other guys would get a few shots here and there too. Actually, Pete Senior played one day, and they gave him scratch. That was a disgrace because he's not a scratch handicap. He should have been plus 4.

We played Peregian Springs. We played Twin Waters. That was the one I was trying to think of. We played Beerwah. We played, I think, Noosa Springs. There would have been a few repeats in there as well. We played Pelican Waters. Just a bunch of courses around there we like. Look, you probably wouldn't fly from America to go play them, but they're lovely courses to play when you're in the area too.

Q. Do you have any idea who would have won a money list if you guys would have kept that?

LUCAS HERBERT: Tom's waving at me from over the back, but I don't remember him taking that many cash. He's handicapped his putter. I reckon Jones was doing all right, wasn't he? Glenn Joyner was taking a fair bit of our money, which was quite frustrating when he was the boss.

Q. Cart?

LUCAS HERBERT: No, we walked. We were walking around.

Q. Did you have the foam stuff in the holes and stuff?

LUCAS HERBERT: We had foam in the cups. No rakes in the bunkers. I don't think we did scorecards. I think it was just -- like you knew -- everyone knows what they've shot. Like it wasn't breaking any COVID rules, I know that, but it was good fun.