Cameron Smith, the world’s second-ranked golfer and a participant whose distinctive final-round placing carried him to this yr’s British Open title, will be part of LIV Golf, the breakaway sequence financed with cash from Saudi Arabia.
Smith is predicted to play in LIV’s subsequent 54-hole, no-cut event, which is able to start Friday in Bolton, Mass., west of Boston. 5 different gamers — Anirban Lahiri, Marc Leishman, Joaquin Niemann, Cameron Tringale and Harold Varner III — will even be part of a LIV discipline for the primary time, the sequence introduced on Tuesday.
The strikes by the gamers have been broadly anticipated however nonetheless bruised the PGA Tour, which has spent months making an attempt to plot methods to maintain gamers in its institution fold. Final week, Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, introduced adjustments, together with purses averaging $20 million at a dozen occasions subsequent season, that executives hoped would higher place the tour to compete with the attract of LIV, which has enticed gamers with extra relaxed schedules and, in some situations, contracts reportedly value no less than $100 million.
Smith, a 29-year-old from Australia who additionally gained this yr’s Gamers Championship, was a number one goal for the sequence, which is underwritten by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. The potential of a Smith defection was such an open secret {that a} reporter requested Smith about it quickly after he gained the Open, the place he shot an eight-under-par 64 on a Sunday to rally from a four-stroke deficit.
“I simply gained the British Open, and also you’re asking about that?” Smith mentioned at a information convention then. “I feel that’s fairly not that good.”
A Fast Information to the LIV Golf Sequence
A Fast Information to the LIV Golf Sequence
A brand new sequence. The debut of the brand new Saudi-financed LIV Golf sequence has resurfaced longstanding questions on athletes’ ethical obligations and their need to compete and earn cash. Right here’s what to know:
Pressed, Smith added: “I don’t know, mate. My workforce round me worries about all that stuff. I’m right here to win golf tournaments.”
Rory McIlroy, one of many PGA Tour’s fiercest supporters and the person whose final-round ambitions Smith had patiently eroded at St. Andrews, spoke with Smith two days after the event.
“Guys which might be considering a method or one other, truthfully, I don’t care in the event that they go away or not,” McIlroy recounted final week in Atlanta, the place he was for the Tour Championship that he would go on to win. “It’s not going to make a distinction to me. However I might no less than like folks to decide that’s utterly knowledgeable and principally know: ‘That is what’s coming down the pipeline. That is what chances are you’ll be forsaking.’”
However within the weeks after the British Open and the alternate with McIlroy, Smith didn’t deny a report in The Telegraph, the London newspaper, that he supposed to play for LIV in alternate for no less than $100 million.
Smith is barely the newest main event winner to signal with LIV Golf, which has drawn scrutiny due to Saudi Arabia’s human rights document, and the sector in Bolton is predicted to incorporate Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.
“LIV Golf is exhibiting the world that our really world league is attracting the world’s greatest gamers and can develop the sport into the long run for the following technology,” Greg Norman, the two-time British Open winner and LIV’s chief govt, mentioned in a press release on Tuesday. “The most effective and the brightest proceed to embrace the thrill and vitality of LIV Golf and what we’re constructing: a tangible league for workforce golf that may join with new audiences everywhere in the globe.”
Though Smith was the headliner of Tuesday’s signing class, the 5 different golfers added to LIV’s roster have generally been formidable.
Lahiri, a member of two Olympic groups, has lengthy been amongst India’s greatest golfers and completed in a tie for fifth on the P.G.A. Championship in 2015. That very same yr, Leishman tied for second on the British Open at St. Andrews after a playoff.
Niemann turned skilled in 2018 and has already amassed greater than $14.5 million in profession earnings, partly because of a wire-to-wire victory on the Genesis Invitational in February. Varner, who has been one of many few Black golfers on the PGA Tour, has 16 profession top-10 tour finishes.
Tringale performed 29 tour occasions this previous season, profitable simply greater than $3 million, however he has by no means fared higher in a significant event than a tie for 14th.
