{"id":814,"date":"2026-05-23T15:53:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/814\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T15:53:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T15:53:47","slug":"liv-golf-crisis-makes-future-unclear-for-australians-cameron-smith-elvis-smylie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/814\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf crisis makes future unclear for Australians Cameron Smith, Elvis Smylie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s golfing hierarchy is allaying fears that Cam Smith may be lost to the sport as they give the major champion space to scramble through LIV’s chaos.<\/p>\n

Smith, the 32-year-old British Open winner, and compatriots Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and Elvis Smylie face uncertain futures amid LIV Golf’s funding crisis.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has pulled out of LIV, leaving the all-Australian Ripper team captained by Smith and other golfers hanging.<\/p>\n

“He’s too young to retire,” PGA of Australia chief executive Gavin Kirkman told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Where he made that decision based on where LIV Golf was at that stage, he may be rethinking [it] with his management.<\/p>\n

LIV Golf has died on a flawed premise and a broken promise<\/a><\/p>\n

While Adelaide showed just how good LIV Golf could be, the flawed premise of the breakaway tournament always spelled trouble.<\/p>\n

“The PGA Tour Enterprises will be rethinking their approach and what their approach will be.<\/p>\n

“And there is probably so much to happen.”<\/p>\n

Kirkman will meet with Smith and his management at the end of the month, hoping by then the dust will have settled on LIV’s future.<\/p>\n

With no Saudi funding from next year, LIV Golf has pivoted to what it describes as a long-term capital strategy that could include private investors buying stakes in teams.<\/p>\n

\"Four<\/p>\n

Where to now for Marc Leishman, Elvis Smylie, Cameron Smith and Lucas Herbert of the Ripper GC? (AAP: Matt Turner)<\/p>\n

But US President Donald Trump and others are urging the US PGA Tour to accept Smith and fellow LIV players back on the American tour.<\/p>\n

“Our focus is on Cam. Marc Leishman has still got a lot of golf to play, Elvis Smylie is a superstar, and Lucas Herbert is capable of winning a major,” Kirkman said.<\/p>\n

“So those four players are very important to Australian golf.<\/p>\n

“We can’t make their decisions for them, but this is where we hope the global golf ecosystem really comes together, because I can say that all the tours and all the majors want the best golfers playing.”<\/p>\n

Smith won the 2022 Open at St Andrews, but his tied ninth at the 2023 PGA Championship is his best finish at a major since.<\/p>\n

He was the only player to miss the halfway cut in all four majors in 2025 and he also failed to make the weekend action at last month’s Masters.<\/p>\n

The Queenslander has amassed a fortune on LIV, with career earnings topping $US51 million ($71 million) after signing for a reported $US100 million ($139 million).<\/p>\n

Smith should be allowed to play whatever tour he wanted, Golf Australia chief James Sutherland said.<\/p>\n

“The four guys on the Ripper team, we’re super proud of them as great golfers,” Sutherland told reporters.<\/p>\n

“And we love the fact they come back and play in our major tournaments every year. I’m sure that will continue to happen.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“We’re supportive of them and their choices to play on whatever tour they want.”<\/p>\n

LIV Golf has held four tournaments in Adelaide, and the South Australian government is spending $45 million on a Greg Norman redevelopment of the North Adelaide golf course, due to host a LIV tournament in 2028.<\/p>\n

“We are certainly not blind or ignorant to some of the discussions going on with LIV,” Sutherland said.<\/p>\n

“I have certainly spoken to people on the [Ripper team] management side of things, and I think they’re obviously working through that.<\/p>\n

“There seems to be a lot of uncertainty as to how this is going to play out.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s golfing hierarchy is allaying fears that Cam Smith may be lost to the sport as they give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[825,831,833,44,81,830,829,832,828,692],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-cameron-smith","tag-elvis-smylie","tag-gavin-kirkman","tag-golf","tag-liv-golf","tag-lucas-herbert","tag-marc-leishman","tag-pga-tour-of-australia","tag-rippers-gc","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}