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HONG KONG: Cameron Smith’s defection to the Saudi-funded LIV Golf circuit is the largest blow but to the US PGA and European Excursions in an influence battle threatening to tear the game aside.
Earlier than the seize of the 29-year-old world quantity two on Tuesday, LIV Golf had been derided as a spot for gamers previous their prime to swell their pension funds.
Now not. Australia’s Smith is having fun with the perfect yr of his profession and is likely one of the largest attracts in golf after profitable the one hundred and fiftieth Open Championship at St Andrews in July for his first main.
The colorful Smith, who sports activities a mullet and moustache, will make his LIV debut in Boston on Friday after reportedly banking greater than $100 million to leap throughout the widening rift between the previous and new forces within the sport.
Smith, who will now be kicked off the Worldwide crew for September’s Presidents Cup, admitted to Australian Golf Digest that cash was a motivator.
“It was clearly a enterprise choice for one and a suggestion I could not ignore,” he mentioned.
4-time main winner Rory McIlroy has been one among LIV’s fiercest critics and reportedly spoke to Smith to guarantee that the Australian knew precisely what he was getting in to.
“Any choice you make in your life purely for cash often would not find yourself going the appropriate method,” McIlroy mentioned earlier this yr.
“I simply do not see the worth in tarnishing a fame for further hundreds of thousands.”
NORMAN COUP
The brainchild of Australian former world primary Greg Norman, the LIV Golf Invitational Collection is gathering momentum after a stuttering begin that solely drew extra consideration to the place the cash was coming from.
It isn’t solely golf. Saudi Arabia has piled large sums into internet hosting Components One, world heavyweight championship boxing and shopping for Premier League Newcastle United, because it bids to make use of sport to enhance the nation’s picture.
Norman is aware of that he has now pulled off a serious coup in snaring Smith together with the likes of Nineteenth-ranked upcoming expertise Joaquin Niemann.
“One of the best and the brightest proceed to embrace the joy and power of LIV Golf and what we’re constructing,” Norman declared.
Till now, a number of main winners Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka had been essentially the most notable LIV signings, however all are battling poor kind or health, or advancing years.
Different well-known LIV recruits similar to Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia are previous their greatest, however Smith is credible, with a sport that may assist LIV counter jibes that it’s simply an exhibition circuit.
WHO’S NEXT AFTER SMITH?
The US PGA Tour has been fast to ban gamers who leap ship. Nevertheless it has been sluggish to counter LIV’s megabucks and progressive 54-hole shotgun begin format, the place a day’s play is condensed right into a TV-friendly four-hour window.
After an elite players-only assembly final week hosted by Tiger Woods and McIlroy, the tour introduced new occasions that includes all its high gamers for $20 million purses, larger than any of this yr’s majors.
It wasn’t sufficient to sway Smith or any of the 5 different new LIV recruits introduced this week, additionally together with India’s primary Anirban Lahiri and one other Australian, Marc Leishman.
There might be extra to come back after the Presidents Cup, with the 2021 Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama and Japan’s large golf market a chief goal.
Matsuyama, a hero again residence, was intriguingly not on a listing of headline gamers for the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship in Japan subsequent month, the place he’s defending champion.
The LIV circuit makes its Asian debut in Bangkok earlier in October and it might be a bitter blow to the PGA Tour if their largest Asian star as a substitute turns up there.
The Asian Tour has already teamed up with LIV, receiving a $400 million windfall in Saudi money.
Lahiri believes attitudes to LIV will change and it could possibly do for golf what the Indian Premier League did for cricket — and it will not simply be the gamers who’re the winners, he says.
“I bear in mind the virtually vehement opposition the IPL acquired,” mentioned Lahiri.
“Have a look at it now. The Board of Management for Cricket in India is laughing all the best way to the financial institution and so are the gamers.”
“The broadcasters are (additionally) delighted as a result of they get off-the-chart scores,” he added. — AFP
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