July 25th, 2026 <\/p>\n
\n By Australian Golf Digest <\/p>\n
[Photo: Jason Butler\/Getty Images]<\/p>\n
In-form Aussie Lucas Herbert is ready for a two-man duel with American superstar Bryson DeChambeau as he extended his stay at the top of the leaderboard at LIV Golf UK.<\/p>\n
Following on from his course record 11-under 61 on day one at JCB Golf and Country Club, Herbert returned a relatively subdued 6-under 66 in Round 2 to lead the way at 17-under par.<\/p>\n
It has helped to give his Ripper GC team a nine-stroke lead in the teams event from DeChambeau\u2019s Crushers GC, captain Cameron Smith (67), Marc Leishman (68) and Travis Smyth (69) all solid contributors on day two.<\/p>\n
Trailing Herbert by four strokes, DeChambeau is three shots clear of Tyrrell Hatton but the Victorian doesn\u2019t expect the pair to have the final two rounds all to themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Bryson will have a bit of a job to do to make sure that it is a two-horse race,\u201d said Herbert, who matched the low round in major championship history with a 62 in Round 2 of The Open a week ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re only halfway. We have a lot of golf to go, but I know I would love to make it a two-horse race with Bryson on Sunday, or maybe a one-horse race if I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t quite the flawless golf of Thursday, but Herbert was candid about keeping perspective on a day that would have looked excellent by any other measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you hadn\u2019t played that round yesterday, you wouldn\u2019t have been too upset, concerned with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you were 7-under through 10 the day before and then you\u2019re trying to hole a 10-footer to stay 1-under through 10, it feels like you\u2019re playing a lot worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just try to keep perspective on it. I still played decent.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rebuilt his momentum on the back nine rather than unravelling it, a departure from patterns that have bitten him in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou talk about momentum, I was able to build momentum on the back nine rather than every time I have a birdie, I tend to shoot myself in the foot on that front side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 25th, 2026 By Australian Golf Digest [Photo: Jason Butler\/Getty Images] In-form Aussie Lucas Herbert is ready for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[87,44,81,830,16190],"class_list":["post-42115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-bryson-dechambeau","tag-golf","tag-liv-golf","tag-lucas-herbert","tag-ripper-gc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}