'It's a tricky one...' LIV Golf star reacts after being snubbed PGA Championship invite

LIV Golf star Lucas Herbert might be enjoying a rich vein of form right now, lying fifth in the individual standings on the Saudi breakaway league, but he's been denied one of a number of last-minute invites into the PGA Championship.

Herbert, 29, has seemingly taken the snub in his stride following an interview with Australian Golf Digest on the eve of golf's second major of the season at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. 

The talented Australian, who represents Cameron Smith's all-Aussie Ripper GC, has racked up four top-five finishes in his first nine starts of the 2025 season. 

Although he remains winless on LIV Golf, Herbert looks on from the fifth rung in the season-long individual standings.

He also helped Ripper GC win LIV Golf Miami last month. 

Herbert has come a long way in the space of a short period of time. 

In September 2023 he revealed how he was forced into a two-month hiatus from the sport due to mental health struggles. 

Fast forward some 20 months and Herbert, once a winner on the PGA Tour and three times on the DP World Tour, is now arguably playing the best golf of his career. 

A number of golf analysts, including ourselves here at GolfMagic, believe Herbert was a tad unfortunate to have missed out one of a number of last-minute invites into the PGA Championship, especially given the form of some of the players that did receive visits from the postman this week. 

The PGA of America decided to hand late invites into the PGA Championship to badly out-of-form duo Rickie Fowler on the PGA Tour and Dustin Johnson on LIV Golf, no doubt with TV viewing figures on their mind. 

Other invites went to LIV Golf duo David Puig and Tom McKibbin, the latter a Rory McIlroy prodigy who controversially binned a first PGA Tour card earlier this season, and DP World Tour pro Elvis Smylie. 

Lucas Herbert reacts to being snubbed PGA invite

Despite understandable disappointment in missing out on a seventh consecutive appearance in the PGA Championship, the current World No.324 (as a result of LIV Golf remaining shut out of receiving OWGR points) held his hands up admitting he just hadn't play quite well enough to earn an invite. 

“I did my schedule end of last year right around Christmas and I had a feeling I wouldn’t need to worry about the PGA because at that point I was ranked about 200 in the world and I was playing one or two, world ranking events between then and now," Herbert told Australian Golf Digest over the phone on Thursday. 

"But as I said to [Flushing It], we knew when we signed up with LIV that majors would be the issue. They [major championship organisers] have the right to invite, or not invite, whoever they want.

"It’s a tricky one. I feel like for the majors, you should be earning your invite in some capacity. It’s unfortunate because I’m playing great and I would’ve loved an opportunity to test my game against the best players in the world at Quail Hollow. But there are avenues for guys to qualify for majors and I just didn’t play well enough in those avenues [essentially, world rankings events in Australia]. But we’ll just have to try and qualify for the US Open or the British Open."

With no LIV Golf League event on the schedule this week, Herbert has decided to peg it up in the $2m International Series Japan presented by Moutai, a far cry from the $20m Truist Championship being contested on the PGA Tour this week. 

The International Series is backed by LIV Golf. 

While a heavy favourite to see out a sixth career professional win this week, Herbert once again continued to show great form and prove exactly why a number of critics and analysts think he was more than deserving of an invite into the PGA Championship.

Herbert raced out the blocks in the first round by equalling the course record of 9-under 62 to build a two-shot lead. 

He even did it with a second-hand putter in the bag that he purchased from a thrift store while having dinner last week in Korea. 

The putter, called Code 01 Forged with an old Yes C-groove face, was smoking hot throughout the day, but especially on holes one to seven, where Herbert drained six birdies and an eagle to overtake morning leader Shunya Takeyasu of Japan.

"I'm very happy with the way I played," Herbert revealed after his opening 62.

"I slowed down a little bit towards the end. It would have been nice to play the last four holes a little better and maybe have a run at a 59.  No, but very happy to be leading by two, and [equal] the course record as well.

"The putter was behaving, definitely on the first few holes. I just got off to really hot start there with the putter, and that just gave me a lot of confidence going to the rest of the round knowing that I could sort of get myself anywhere around the hole."

Should Lucas Herbert have been invited into the PGA Championship, especially over the likes of out-of-form duo Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler? Or do established names in the game matter more? Head over to GolfMagic Facebook to let us know.