I Was At 'Breaking Point' - Herbert Shoots 63 On Return From Seven-Week 'Mental Reset'

Lucas Herbert shot 63 on his return to golf following a self-imposed break from the game to get a "mental reset" after feeling he'd become "a bitter and spiteful person" on the course.

The Australian missed the cut at The Open and then took seven weeks off, sacrificing the rest of the season in order to deal with things both on and off the course that had been bringing him down.

After returning to the PGA tour with a fine opening round at the Fortinet Championship, Herbert opened up on his struggles and why he felt he needed a complete break away from golf.

"I felt like heading to Europe for the Scottish and The Open, if I wasn't probably inside the top 100 after those two events, I wasn't going to try and bother chasing the Playoffs. I just knew that I needed that mental reset," said Herbert.

"From the outside it doesn't look like the greatest decision to make, but I really needed the reset. Yeah, I was just able to get away from golf for a while."

Herbert says disappointment on the golf course, coupled with issues off it, just piled on the pressure so much that he let it get the better of him - culminating in him being disappointed with his own actions at Royal Liverpool.

"Golf's been getting me down pretty hard this year," Herbert added. "It was just a tough stretch there where I had a lot going on both in my life and on the golf course as well.

"It was a lot of stuff. I just think a lot's happened for me this year. I've had to deal with a lot off the golf course and it felt like I was kind of idling at 80 percent when I did get on the course.

"I think I'd become probably a bitter and spiteful person. Not over the top, but I didn't like the version of myself I look back on and see at The Open Championship. I think I was wound up pretty tight and kind of lashed out at people around me too quickly, too easily.

"The break was a good chance for me to be able to get away and reset, just get away from this life. I just think you're under the pump so much, so much pressure on you externally and internally to play well. Yeah, to be able to get away from that, you're sort of able to kind of find yourself a little bit again."

Slippery slope led to breaking point

Herbert had some immediate success on the PGA Tour, but says the pressure of trying to stay at the top when his game wasn't quite clicking led to him reaching breaking point - with it being so hard to take a break during the season.

"You're into the biggest events against the best players, I think it was just whether it's pressure from external or there's just expectations internally that you're just going to keep going up.

"It doesn't take much for you to be off out here. When you don't get a few of those results, it just compounds and it compounds and you put more pressure on yourself, and it gets worse and very quickly you can go down a slippery slope.

"It's pretty hard to take any time off in the middle of the season. Go and tell me to miss Memorial, I'm never going to do that, it's such an amazing event, but it was probably what I needed at the time. I just didn't have the ability to go and do that. 

"It sort of got to a point, a sort of breaking point, I just had to do it. Didn't really watch a lot of golf. It was just lovely to get away from the game, to be honest."