The duo headed back to the 18^th hole and with Herbert this time finding the water with his second shot but after taking a penalty drop the recently-turned 24-year superbly landed a wedge to within tap-in distance to match Bezuidenhout’s par.

It was back to the 18^th for a third occasion and with Herbert superbly holing out for a birdie ‘4’ to land a first European Tour victory at his 50^th Tour start.

Herbert’s success comes 23-years after fellow Victorian Richard Green became the first and then only Australian to lift the unique ‘coffee pot’ trophy.

Lucas Herbert brilliantly celebrates Australia Day with a first Tour victory in capturing the 2020 Omega Dubai Desert Classic (Photo @europeantour)

“The last ten minutes feel like I’ve been dreaming,” he said smiling.

“It’s so weird. It’s awesome. It’s just the best thing ever. It is so good. We’ve got a bottle of Scotch at home to celebrate, so I can’t wait to get into that with the boys.”

Though there was much more to Herbert’s triumph on Australia’s national day.

Herbert win continues an impressive run of ‘Down Under’ success on the golfing world stage to be a fourth victory in four weeks on four different Tour’s and on three continents.

Adam Scott began the victory run on December 22^nd capturing the Australian PGA Championship and with fellow Adelaide-born Wade Ormsby winning a second Hong Kong Open title on January 12^th before much later that day when Cameron Smith won a first ‘individual’ title on the PGA Tour in succeeding at the Sony Hawaiian Open.

And Herbert was asked if the run of Australian victories helped inspired his only victory.

“I’m now part of that club, that’s a pretty good club to be a part of,” he said.

“I think we’ve got some great players obviously playing well at present. We are pretty well populated on tours around the world. So yeah, it’s always great to see us Aussie guys succeeding, playing well, winning.

“We all get behind each other, so yeah, I’m glad I could add to that list.”

And there’s another list that Herbert is a part and while also joining Green with his name on the Omega Dubai Desert Classic trophy he also joins the greats of the game including Ernie Els (1994, 2002 & 2005), Fred Couples (1996), Colin Montgomerie (1996), Tiger Woods (2006 & 2008), Henrik Stenson (2007), Rory McIlroy (2009 & 2015), Danny Willett (2016), Sergio Garcia (2017) and Bryson DeChambeau (2019).

Though it was McIlroy’s name than Herbert singled out.

“It’s pretty cool to now join some great names on the trophy and I know Rory won this start for his first European Tour win, so we are both in that club,” said Herbert.

“That’s a pretty cool club to be a part of.”

Herbert also collected a career-high prize pay-out of Euro 490,323 ($AUD 792,050) that has lifted him to second on the Race to Dubai along with a two-year European Tour exemption which is virtually, and given it is early in the New Year, much akin to a three-year exemption.

Herbert, who is also expected to move jump from 223^rd to 77^th on the World Rankings, is already looking at an ‘adjusted’ 2020 season schedule.

“The goal early in the year was to play well, try and get myself into bigger events like try and get myself into WGC events or whatever, those kind of stuff, majors,” he said.

“I haven’t even thought about what this is going to do, but the bigger events we can get into, the better, and hopefully I’m looking forward to try and play in those, and you know, win again.

“That would be great. It was a pretty good field, so I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

AND ….  The toughened conditions to greet this year’s field got the result the Tour sought with the nine-under winning tally being the lowest ever in the history of the event and 15 shots fewer than Bryson DeChambeau record-setting mark of 24-under par a year ago.

The previous low was 11-under par in the inaugural 1989 tournament and then again in 2010 and 2011.

end