Lucas Herbert arrived at the 18th hole Friday afternoon with history within reach. Five feet and three inches separated the Australian from becoming the first player ever to card a 62 in a major championship. What he actually needed was something far harder to measure: the ability to block out everything his mind was screaming at him.
Herbert's drive found the right rough. A spectator relief drop softened the blow. His approach came up short of the green. Standing over his chance at immortality, he left the putt short of the hole. The ball slid left. No major championship 61. No transcendent moment. Just another excellent round that somehow felt like a failure.
His caddie Nick Pugh watched the miss and understood immediately. "I would back Lucas 100 times out of 100 to hole those," Pugh said afterward. "He's one of the best putters, if not the best putter in the world. He knocks them in with aplomb all day long. But when your heart is racing and you know what's on the line, there's probably just that little distraction. History has an evil or great way of doing this to people when history is on the line."
Herbert's actual score: 62, good for eight under par and the clubhouse lead. He became only the sixth man to shoot 62 in a major and only the second in Open Championship history. The course record fell. The record book expanded. None of it seemed to matter.
"I'm absolutely disappointed and at the same time, so proud of today," Herbert said, capturing the strange duality of his round. "Very, very proud to put my name on that list of guys that have shot 62 in a major championship. So it's kind of holding two emotions there at the same time. It's a tricky one."
The 30-year-old LIV golfer had spent much of his round aware of what was happening. Unlike Branden Grace, who famously claimed obliviousness during his 62 at Royal Birkdale nine years prior, Herbert was locked in on the math from the moment he birdied the opening two holes. "I'm a golf nerd so I know all the numbers, all the records, everything like that," he explained. "The opportunities I do get to play majors, then you get an opportunity to get off to a hot start on a golf course that's a par 70, not that I wanted the thoughts to come into my head, but that was honestly when it came in."
He caught fire early. A front nine in 28 put him in rare air. Birdies at the 10th, 11th and 12th kept the momentum rolling. Galleries abandoned their usual routes to follow his group. Royal Birkdale, which was supposed to resist such an assault, was being dismantled shot by shot.
The momentum cracked at the 14th when his driver found sand. A recovery birdie at the 16th after splitting the fairway got him back on track. Nerves showed at the 17th when he yanked his second shot into the crowd, but he salvaged par. One more good hole and the record would be his.
Herbert found the right side of the fairway before his chip landed short. The moment crystallized down to one five-foot putt. He missed it.
The Australian later reflected on what might have been, particularly a childhood memory that made the near-miss sting even more. "One of my earliest golf memories, my dad waking me up to watch Chad Campbell in the first round in the 2009 Masters because it looked like he had a really good chance to shoot 62 and break the record at that time," he said. "I thought, if one kid gets woken up by their parents to watch me finish this round because that's the record being broken, that would be so cool and it would tickle me pink. I hope it happened. I hope some kid is disappointed that I shot 62 and didn't hole that putt on the last."
The sting deepened minutes later when Sam Burns holed out from a bunker at the 18th for his own 62. Burns pulled level with Herbert on the leaderboard, which felt like salt on an already raw wound.
Herbert's relationship with Pugh, who married the golfer and his wife last year, provided some solace. "I said to him after missing that putt on the last: I love doing this stuff with you, mate," Herbert recounted. It was perhaps the only silver lining to a day that proved that sometimes excellence isn't enough.
Author James Rodriguez: "Herbert had one shot to make history and the golf gods said no, but that 62 will haunt him forever in the best and worst ways possible."
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