Aussie golf star Cam Smith has confirmed he only found out about the merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour minutes before the bombshell announcement shook the sport to its core. Last week, the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV circuit all agreed to merge, ending months of very public bickering and legal action between the warring factions.
How exactly that partnership looks, and what it means for the future of the no-cut, 54-hole format of LIV Golf is still anyone’s guess, with the finer details yet to be worked out. One man who’s none-the-wiser is Smith, who signed for LIV for a whopping $140 million, shortly after winning last year’s Open Championship at St Andrews.
It’s unclear whether LIV Golf will continue beyond 2023, but Smith says until it is still operating, then he will gladly remain part of it. Speaking in California ahead of the US Open – which gets underway at The Los Angeles Country Club later this week – the Aussie revealed that he only found out about the LIV Golf merger 10 minutes before the announcement was made on American television.
The World No.9 said he received a phone call from Yasir Al-Rumayyan – governor of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) that finances LIV – informing him of the move that the Aussie had trouble believing at first. “I guess the first reaction was I thought it was kind of a joke that had come out,” Smith said.
“He didn’t really explain too much. There’s still a lot of stuff to be worked out, and as time goes on we’ll get to know more and more. There’s definitely a lot of curious players, on both sides, as to what the future is going to look like.”
