Boo! That wind gust you just felt through your open window, that’s not a ghost. That’s the weather from the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, whooshing all the way from Port Royal to your living room. Lucas Herbert, who has let the wind take him around the globe the last few years, tamed the elements to shoot a final-round 69 and become the season’s first first-time winner, holding off Patrick Reed and Danny Lee by one shot. Herbert making name in America Already a two-time winner on the European Tour, Herbert, 25, accidentally made news off the course in August. Set to play in the National Children’s Hospital Open in Columbus, Ohio, part of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, he booked his trip to Columbus, Georgia, roughly 670 miles away. He still made it to The Buckeye State in time for a T58 finish. He also had a good laugh. After all, he had locked up his PGA TOUR card for 2021-22 after a T4 the previous week, and now he’s a TOUR winner, holding steady in the wind at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. While his closest pursuers succumbed to mistakes on the front nine (third-round leader Taylor Pendrith) and back (Danny Lee), Herbert hung tough and parred the final four holes. “I think growing up in Australia, we had a lot of this kind of stuff,” Herbert said of the conditions. “I played countless junior events where the wind was just brutal. And especially playing on the European Tour now for two or three years, it gets pretty windy out there, as well.” Herbert will be learning more about the variety of conditions on TOUR. After missing the cut in his first two starts, he has now punched his ticket to the Sentry Tournament of Champions, THE PLAYERS Championship, and the Masters Tournament, among other biggies in 2022. He moves to fifth in the FedExCup and 43rd in the world, his highest-ever ranking. Reed makes late charge At 24th in the world and with nine TOUR titles to his name, Patrick Reed was one of the biggest names in Bermuda. After battling bilateral pneumonia in August and starting his 2021-22 season with a missed cut and a T68, Port Royal would provide a glimpse into the state of his game. The answer: It is still very good. Reed was the only player in the field to shoot four rounds in the 60s, going 68-69-68-65. On Thursday, after taking a drop from just off the cart path at the par-5 17th hole, he provided one of the highlights of the tournament with a hole-out eagle. His final-round 65 was the second-lowest score of the day (Scott Stallings, 62). Playing in the seventh-to-last group, Reed birdied four of his last six holes for a 31 and the clubhouse lead. He would watch Herbert for the next hour, losing out on a playoff by just one shot. “Ever since I got back from being sick, it just seemed like the offense wasn’t quite there,” Reed said. “I wasn’t making enough birdies and when that happens, one loose swing here or there, it turns around, and you try to salvage a mediocre round. This week, I definitely produced enough offense, but I need to take away some of the careless errors.” Reed will tee it up at this week’s World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. Winds make for spooky conditions The Wednesday pro-am was canceled due to “dangerous wind gusts” reaching 40 mph, and the treachery continued into Thursday morning with only six players in the early wave posting an under-par score. When play was stopped due to darkness, only 33 players were under par. “You see winds like this, but normally you don’t play in them. This was the hardest wind I’ve ever played in,” said Matt Fitzpatrick, who grew up in Sheffield, England and briefly went to college at Northwestern University, outside Chicago. “I absolutely ripped a drive on seven. People are going to laugh at this because they probably think it’s my normal tee shot, but anyway, I ripped it and it went 245. I think my season average last year was like 295.” Improved conditions led to lower scores – Taylor Pendrith shot a course-record 61 on Friday – but the break in the weather didn’t last. With a Sunday afternoon storm building, fourth-round tee times were moved up to the morning. Officials still had to briefly stop play as winds hovered around 20 mph. Pendrith struggled to a 76, tied for the eighth-worst score of the day. Herbert refused to buckle. “I felt like I grinded really well early and I had the right attitude going into the day that it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said. “I don’t think we even hit drivers on the range because you just couldn’t hit it, it was just pointless, so you just knew it was going to be one of those days where you had to battle really, really hard. Under par was going to be a great score.” Rodgers making most of solid play Patrick Rodgers has been on TOUR since the 2015-16 season, but after falling to No. 128 in the FedEx Cup last season his streak was in jeopardy. Acting fast, he went T20-CUT-T15 in the three events of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals to earn back his PGA TOUR card. How close did he come to losing it? A lot closer than people realized, according to caddie Brian Nichol. Nichol, who was on the bag for Kristoffer Ventura and in Rodgers’ group at the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in September, said Rodgers was looking for an errant tee ball on the 15th hole when the third member of the group, Tyson Alexander, found it after a search of 2 minutes and 58 seconds. Two more seconds and Rodgers would have had to take a penalty. He saved par and birdied 17 to jump from 33rd to 20th in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals (top 25 make the PGA TOUR). Rodgers is clearly embracing his good fortune. He opened his season with a T6 at the Fortinet Championship, and after a missed cut at the Sanderson Farms Championship, his 4th place finish in Bermuda is his best result since a runner-up at the 2018 RSM Classic. “That was a really difficult emotional battle,” he said of his Korn Ferry Tour adventure. “I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders since coming back.” With 221 FedExCup points this fall, Rodgers is already more than halfway to matching his 433 all last season. Gay adds another Bermuda highlight A year ago, Brian Gay shot a final-round 64 to force a playoff with Wyndham Clark, which Gay won on the first extra hole. The Bermuda title was Gay’s fifth on TOUR but first since 2013. This time around, Gay, 49, came into the week having failed to finish better than T29 since his win. But Bermuda brought out the good mojo again. After starting with a 75, he climbed back with a 67 on Friday (including an eagle on No. 17) to make the cut on the number. He shot 64 on Saturday, tied for best of the day, and on Sunday he holed out for eagle on 18 for a 68. Gay finished T12 at 10 under. Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.
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