Weekly Recap: Herbert Wins Again

Somebody had to win the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, right?

In one of the weakest fields you'll ever see on the PGA Tour, some unknown golfer could've caught lightning in a bottle for four days and had his life change forever. But no. Instead, a blossoming star came away with the victory.

Lucas Herbert, a young Aussie ranked a respectable 57th in the world, withstood windy and rainy conditions more befitting of Carnoustie than an island paradise to notch his third worldwide win this year by one stroke over Patrick Reed and Danny Lee.

Herbert was the fourth-highest-ranked golfer in the field behind Reed, Matt Fitzpatrick and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, though he was not among the top 25 guys in DraftKings contests, checking in at $7,700. Call it international bias, especially after Herbert missed his first two cuts as a Tour member following qualifying via the Korn Ferry playoffs.

Wins are wins, wins are hard, though we cannot stress enough that everything written in this edition of this article comes with a big fat enormous asterisk because this was not a normal week on the PGA Tour. It's hard to gauge how anyone played when the competition was weaker than it will be at any other time this season.

Herbert still beat 125+ other guys, almost any of whom are good enough to string together four great rounds at least once in their lives.

Besides, the Aussie had been showing definitive signs of emerging on the world stage. He beat a pretty darn good field at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in January, one that included Bryson DeChambeau, Louis Oosthuizen, Viktor Hovland, Sergio Garcia, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry, not to mention Fitzpatrick and Bezuidenhout. Then Herbert won the Irish Open in July in a weak-but-not-Bermuda-weak field in July. Rory McIlroy was in that one.

But until Herbert won here -- and remember the asterisk -- you never know for sure whether an international can adapt to golf in the States. Again, Herbert had shown signs, posting a T31 at the 2020 U.S. Open and top-20s at this year's Memorial and Travelers Championship.

Hebert will not be in this week's very strong field at Mayakoba, but he'll have plenty of chances to show us how much the Bermuda win means when he plays in majors, WGCs, THE PLAYERS and invitationals in 2022. And now ranked 43rd in the world, there's a good chance he'll be on the International Team for the Presidents Cup.

We had been tracking Herbert and Aaron Rai in the weekly recap because they are two on-the-rise internationals who had just gotten their PGA Tour cards. After missing three straight cuts, Rai tied for 62nd at Bermuda. So that's a start. He was entered at Mayakoba, got bumped to make room for all the guys who finished top-10 in Bermuda but quickly got back in on a sponsor invite.

Before getting to the Backspin, we just want to reiterate that everything read below must be done with the realization that this was one of the weakest full-points PGA Tour fields on record. Even "regular" weak fields are four or five times stronger, based on the OWGR strength-of-field rating.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Patrick Reed
Reed put on a short-game clinic amid the adverse conditions to climb the leaderboard on Sunday and come up one stroke short. Reports his demise may have been premature. He did not have a great year, then got sick -- apparently very sick -- late in the season. We don't know how much that impacted him. We'll get a further read on him this week at Mayakoba.
 
Danny Lee
Lee is playing on a minor medical extension and would've fulfilled it with a win. But after leading on the back nine, he wound up one stroke short. He accrued 245 FedEx Cup points, and now he has two starts left to get only 43 more, eminently doable. He was ranked 314th in the world but jumped to 229th, plus the top-10 got him into Mayakoba.

Patrick Rodgers
Rodgers has made almost 200 Tour starts (193, to be exact) without a win. Naturally, this would've been a good time to break through in one of the best chances he'll get. He ended up solo fourth, not too shabby, and is off to a great start in trying to keep his card. Wins are a strong goal but keeping your card is paramount. It's especially important to Rodgers after he had to return to the Korn Ferry playoffs to get his card for this season. So finishing fourth was by no means minor to him.

Scott Stallings
It probably won't get its due because it happened in this field, but Stallings' 9-under 62 round on Sunday while the rain was blowing sideways should go down as one of the top rounds on Tour all year. It was three clear of the next-best round of the day, shot by Reed.  Stallings tied for fifth and, combined with a T6 at the Fortinet, is off to a great start in 2021-22.

Taylor Pendrith
Pendrith tied for fifth, his best finish ever on Tour, but he is not feeling very good right now. He had a three-stroke lead to start the day, then came apart with three straight bogeys on the front nine and, for a good measure, a double on 17. Still, from our perspective, he's made all four cuts in his first season Tour and the top-10 got him into next week's field at Mayakoba.

Seamus Power
Power came in at $10,200, which was a deal breaker for us. He did, however, come close to justifying his top-5 price with a Sunday rally to tie for 12th. Notably, it moved him to 100th in the world rankings.

Brian Gay
Gay is two months from becoming Champions Tour-eligible. He really can't compete on the PGA Tour anymore – except in Bermuda. He tied for third two years ago, won it all last year and, with a walk-off eagle, tied for 12th.
 
Matt Fitzpatrick
Lucas Herbert has a PGA Tour win and Fitzpatrick doesn't. That might be a bit unfair but no less true. If Fitzpatrick ever were going to win in the States, he won't find a better set of circumstances than there were waiting for him in Bermuda. He was coming off a win in Spain, which may have made winning again so soon a bit harder but still. He tied for 30th in a lackluster performance.

Jim Knous
This was the final start for Knous under a major medical extension. He bogeyed seven of his first eight holes on Thursday, then battled back to tie for 57th. While that wasn't early enough to get him a full PGA Tour card, it did get him conditional status and full privileges on the Korn Ferry Tour. This was an enormous day for Knous.

Hayden Buckley
Buckley was the Korn Ferry graduate flavor of the month after notching top-8s in his past two PGA Tour starts. He made the Bermuda cut but only tied for 67th. And that got him bumped to alternate status for Mayakoba. Buckley may be a good young player, but there are few coming out of the KF Tour with their arrows pointing straight up.

Danny Willett
Willett was among the higher-ranked guys in the field at 106th and had the more favorable late/early draw on Thursday/Friday. So to miss the cut was not easy. But that's Willett – so much talent but co inconsistent. It would not be a surprise to see an entirely different golfer this week against far tougher competition at Mayakoba.

Top-10 Finishers

Davis Riley, Curtis Thompson and Vincent Whaley all tied for seventh and thus all gained entry into next week's Mayakoba field. All three were ranked in the 300s of the OWGR and aren't much of a fantasy option, though Riley is emerging and bears watching.