The 29-year-old from Bendigo will be the star turn at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley's famous wine region.

Herbert will also contest the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, December 4-7 and be joined by Cam Smith, Min Woo Lee, Ryan Fox and Kazuma Kobori who have all officially signed on to play in the flagship event this summer.

“I spent a lot of time on the Sandbelt as a kid and grew up there so very much looking forward to playing an event and hopefully try and win an Aussie Open in my home state,” Herbert told Australian media via a Zoom call on Thursday.

There is also the carrot dangling of the Masters invite after Augusta National announced the winner of the Stonehaven Cup would recieve a ticket to golf's holy grail earlier this year.

“It's very, very exciting. It gives me chills to think about holding an Aussie Open trophy on Sunday of the tournament and knowing that I've got a spot in the Masters and the Open off the back of it. Yeah, that's pretty much golfing mecca for an Aussie player, I think,” Herbert said.

The official news of Smith contending is a promising one, as he was weighing up his options when Golf Australia magazine reached out earlier this year.

PLUS...

"Definitely want to": PGA confirmed, Australian Open likely, Smith now thinking NSW Open, Queensland PGA

It would have surprised had he said otherwise, but Cameron Smith has given a strong indication that, following the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland, he will take on Rory McIlroy at Royal Melbourne in December's Australian Open. Smith further revealed that he will likely be home in October and would love to compete in the NSW Open at The Vintage and the Queensland PGA at Nudgee.

“I'm still kind of thinking about it a little bit,” Smith said. "I am going to bring my wife and [six-month-old son] Remy down, probably in October at some point.

“I don't know how stuff is going to go, [but] I would love to do it again. It was really great fun last year ... it's something that I definitely want to do again.”

The NSW Open's purse of $800,000 is well behind that of the Australian PGA Championship ($2.5 million) and Australian Open ($2 million), but dwarfs local tour contempories, the WA Open ($200,000), Queensland PGA ($250,000) and Victorian PGA ($250,000).  

Last year's NSW Open was contested by 2006 U.S Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and 2024 Australian PGA champion Elvis Smylie, while Herbert's victory last year saw him join such figures as Norman von Nida, Peter Thomson, Bill Dunk, Kel Nagle, Greg Norman, Jack Newton, Ian Baker-Finch, Rodger Davis, Craig Parry and Peter Lonard.