[AP PHOTO] Lucas Herbert fired a five-under 66 in Bedminster to be on the leader\u2019s heels in LIV Golf New York.<\/p>\n
Lucas Herbert is enjoying a purple patch in his career and once again the Australian has taken advantage of his red-hot form to be in contention at LIV Golf New York.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old fired a five-under 66 in Bedminster on Friday to move within two of leader Joaquin Niemann after the opening round.<\/p>\n
In spite of finding the rough with his drive at the last, Herbert birdied the par-five 18th to close in on playing partner Niemann who made par.<\/p>\n
It was a warning signal to 2023 Australian Open winner Niemann about the rich vein in form Herbert is experiencing, as the Bendigo-born star added another bogey-free round to his resume.<\/p>\n
Herbert has gone an amazing 62 holes in LIV Golf without dropping a shot \u2013 a stat that helps underline his recent dominance in the series and explains his record-breaking 30-under total to win LIV Golf United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Before that he finished tied sixth at the Open, his best finish in a major where he also shot a 62 in the second round to tie the low round in major championship history, and won LIV Golf Virginia with a 24-under score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Niemann, 27, \u200cis chasing his \u2060ninth LIV Golf individual title and his second of the year following a \u200bfive-win season in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201c(My putter) worked out pretty well today,\u201d Niemann said. \u201cYeah, feel good. Just keep doing my routine. I feel like every time I keep doing the same thing, just seeing my lines, sticking to my routine, and then see if it goes in. It went \u200cin today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veteran Ian Poulter joins Herbert in second spot at five-under, the 50-year-old Englishman still chasing his first LIV win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hitting good golf shots,\u201d said Poulter. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m rolling the ball really well. You need to shoot these scores on these type of golf courses. \u200cThis is a long golf course for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brendan Steele and Thomas Pieters of Belgium are tied for fourth at three-under 68. Bubba Watson, Harold Varner III, Scott Vincent of Zimbabwe and Lee Westwood of England are another shot back in a tie for sixth.<\/p>\n
Travis Smyth and Marc Leishmann are the next best Australians at even par.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Niemann\u2019s 64 anchored the team he captains, Torque GC, which tops the standings at four-under. They lead by three the all-Australian Ripper GC and HyFlyers GC.<\/p>\n
Team Ripper captain Cameron Smith \u2013 the individual winner the last time Bedminster \u200bhosted a LIV event in \u20602023 \u2013 struggled to a four-over 75.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryson DeChambeau imploded for a five-over 76. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[AP PHOTO] Lucas Herbert fired a five-under 66 in Bedminster to be on the leader\u2019s heels in LIV…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,3193,755,43063,24846,417461,5507,44,198637,85],"class_list":["post-846560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cameron-smith","tag-golf","tag-ian-poulter","tag-joaquin-niemann","tag-liv-golf-new-york","tag-lucas-herbert","tag-news","tag-ripper-gc","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}