Irish eyes are smiling as Herbert takes Mt Juliet lead

Australia’s Lucas Herbert has opened his Irish Open account in style firing an 8-under 64 for a one shot lead over Johannes Veerman at Mount Juliet Estate in County Kilkenny, Ireland.

It was the lowest round by the Victorian since his final round 64 at the European Masters in September 2019 where he finished in a share of 8th place.

Lucas Herbert (Credit: European Tour)

“I made a really long one on 18 for birdie and that kind of sparked things and got things going…I aas able to play really nice that last nine holes,” said the World No.91, who teed off in just the second group of the day.

“I felt like I was trying to get to five or six under and I didn’t really want to try and just attack really, really hard. It was just try and hit the ball in the right spots, give yourself some looks on the greens and I felt like if I could get to five or six under that would be a really good day.”

“A few more rolled in and I got to eight.”

Western Australian Jason Scrivener continues his solid form this season carding a bogey-free 5-under 67 to take a 15-way share of 5th place amongst Tommy Fleetwood, two-time major champion Martin Kaymer and Andrew “Beef” Johnston.

Min Woo Lee (T19), Maverick Antcliff (T37), Wade Ormsby (T73), Scott Hend (T132) and Jake McLeod (T146) round out the the Aussie attack.

Playing in his first European Tour tournament since January’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Rory McIlroy, closed his first round at even par and will need something special tomorrow to avoid the cut line.

Herbert isn’t the only Australian enjoying a tournament lead with Blake Windred posting a bogey-free 65 to share the top of the leaderboard at the European Challenge Tour’s Kaskada Golf Challenge while Sydney’s Stephanie Kyriacou fired a 66 for a two-shot lead at the LET’s Big Green Egg Open.