Cameron Smith has put his stamp on the All-Australian team he’ll captain in this year’s LIV Golf league by renaming it “Ripper GC”.
The British Open champ was lured to LIV by Greg Norman in a reported $140m deal with the chance to have a 25 per cent stake in the all-Australian team.
While LIV missed out on luring Adam Scott to join the breakaway tour, Smith will captain a team that includes great mate Marc Leishman and countryman Matt Jones, who remains embroiled in a legal fight in the US after being banned from playing on the PGA Tour.
Having splashed nearly a billion dollars of money from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to start the new league, LIV’s revenue was “virtually zero” during its first season, it’s since emerged.
Documents filed by LIV lawyers in the US acting for Jones and other players against the PGA Tour revealed the stark state of affairs for Norman and his colleagues.
“The tour has damaged LIV’s brand, driven up its costs by hundreds of millions of dollars and driven down revenues to virtually zero,” the documents tendered to the court state.
Attorneys for LIV argued it would suffer “immeasurable” damage “if the tour is permitted to continue its anticompetitive conduct into another season beyond 2023”.
LIV Golf’s lawyers also accused the PGA Tour of undermining the careers of several of the circuit’s players, including Jones, who were suspended by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan for participating in LIV Golf events without releases.
Smith, who conceded last week it “hurt” that he couldn’t be world No.1 after his move to LIV Golf, and Leishman are not part of the legal action.
