In the season opening Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship last week, in which Herbert contended
strongly – at least until the weekend - he averaged 321 yards off the tee, a significant improvement on his 2020 season average of 301.25 yards.
But it took an early morning Zoom chat with his Peregian coach Dom Azzopardi to sort out a few teething problems with the booming new driver.
“He was losing a few right with this driver in practice and I talked to him about what’s going to cause that in his technique, particularly now that he’s got the ball further forward,” Azzopardi said.
We ve made our way around it with FaceTime and other technology that we re able to use these days… and we ve been doing a really good job of staying on top of it, said Smith, who honed his game as a junior on the Invincibles Sunshine Coast Tour. In fact, Smith said his celebrated short game was as good as it has ever been. I ve putted really well. I feel as though if I can get my longer stuff, and especially my irons into a good spot, I ll be able to compete every week. So, I m just working on that with Fieldy… not trying to overdo it, just little steps. Hopefully it all falls into place very soon.