LIV Golf star Cameron Smith revealed some of the concerns he had before signing with the Saudi-backed circuit.
The Open champion became one of LIV's biggest signings in 2022 after receiving a reported £116million signing-on fee to join the breakaway series. While he is pleased with the decision he made albeit a controversial one, the Australian felt some nerves about one thing.
“Probably one of the biggest things I was scared about was the shotgun start,” he told the Straight Down The Middle'ish podcast. “It worked so good. We were off at the same time every day, everyone's playing in the same conditions [and] sure it's a bit of a s*** show before the round getting guys out to their tees and stuff but it's only 10 minutes."
The 29-year-old has played five events on the Saudi-funded circuit and won the Chicago event last September. In total Smith managed to earn an eye-watering £6million in winnings. While he made a risky decision, Smith believes it has paid off. “It was definitely a big decision [of joining LIV], but I feel as though I definitely made the right decision,” he added.
“I've played five or six events out there and [and] the way I've seen it progress over that short period of time, it's going in the right direction. The fans love it. I think there's a lot more for people to do out there. It's a fun time. The way I would describe it is that it's more like going to a sporting event than a golf tournament."
However, Smith’s LIV move has come with consequences. After being crowned Open champion last June, Smith found himself at a career high number two in the world rankings, and on the cusp of becoming the world's best player for the first time.
His move to LIV prevented that from happening however, with the Saudi-backed series yet to achieve Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) status. With the Aussie banned from the PGA Tour due to his LIV commitments, this left Smith without an opportunity to compete for world ranking points.
Smith returned to action at last week's Saudi International, his first event of the year, but he missed the cut.
Ahead of his 2023 debut, he spoke about the consequences of his LIV switch. "I've tried to take it not that badly, to be honest," he said. "I think when you rock up to a tournament, you know who you have to beat, whether there's a world ranking or not.
"There's generally seven or eight guys that are in that field that you know are going to put up a pretty good fight. For sure, it hurts. I feel as though I was really close to getting to No.1, and that was definitely something I wanted to tick off."
