Rising Australian golf star Lucas Herbert battled the rain and back-nine nerves to make the British Open cut on debut – all while having to use borrowed clubs.

The Australia’s youngest player at Carnoustie, 22-year-old Herbert defied the beastly weather to upstage his more celebrated compatriots including Jason Day and Adam Scott with a two-under-par 69 on Friday to claw his way back to even for the Open.

“Fairly happy with that one. Tough conditions out there,” Herbert said.

“It’s not quite the worst British Open conditions, I’d imagine, but it’s starting to show its teeth a bit more and why Scotland is known for it and I thought I battled it really well.

“It was an interesting one coming down the stretch. I was trying to fight the nerves and saying ‘let’s make the cut’, but I was also maybe only two shots out of the top 10 so I was trying to make a couple of birdies to get myself into the mix for the weekend.

“But I won’t be too far away and if I get a good round out there in the morning, who knows come Sunday.”

Making Herbert’s effort even more impressive is the fact he’s made the cut with a borrowed set of clubs after his trusty TaylorMades were lost on his flight to Scotland from Australia.

He said he still had “no idea” where his might be.

“I think there’ll be phone calls made this afternoon. My bag was suppose to turn up yesterday, but it was a suit case,” Herbert said.

“So I think someone needs to get it together within the airline.”

Herbert will start Saturday’s third round at Carnoustie six shots behind joint leaders Zach Johnson and Kevin Kisner.

-AAP