Lucas Herbert heaps praise on his Scottish caddie

As he prepares to round off an impressive rookie season on the European Tour at this week’s DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, rising star Lucas Herbert has heaped praise on his right-hand man – Scottish caddie Craig Connelly.

Herbert, 22, has had an exceptional first season on the tour, making the cut in 16 of his 20 starts with a best finish of second at the Portugal Masters. There have been six other top tens in there, too, all of which has contrived to put him inside the top 50 on the Race To Dubai going into the final event this week.

He teamed-up with Connelly at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship following the Scot’s split from Martin Kaymer and, as far as Herbert is concerned, it’s a case of ‘so far, so good’.

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“Having Craig on my bag has definitely helped,” he told the European Tour website. “He’s been on the bag of guys like Kaymer, Paul Casey and Monty and he’s seen just about every situation there is on a golf course.

“A couple of guys in my equipment company saw him doing some radio stuff at the Ryder Cup and asked him if he would be interested in joining me on Tour and we started together the next week at the Dunhill Links.”

The duo hit the ground running, combining for top ten finishes in each of their first two weeks together.

“It certainly makes a difference have an experienced guy like him walking with you every round,” added Herbert. “I like to play pretty aggressively and I hate laying up but he’s helped me work out the risks on shots and it has, no doubt, saved me shots over the last couple of months.

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“Outside of the shots, he’s a good guy to chat to. I’ll ask him about caddying around the world and playing different courses, about the players he’s worked for, little things that they might have done that could help me and all those sorts of things, just generally trying to take in some of his experience. He’s a good guy.”