[Photo: Getty images]
Marc Leishman is bracing for an epic and fun Mad Monday celebration after the Cameron Smith-led Ripper GC won the LIV Golf Teams championship in Texas for a mega pay day and the all-Australian squad’s first season-long teams title.
Ripper GC took out the teams finale at Maridoe Golf Club near Dallas by three shots over Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces team.
Now, with a planned post-season party in Smith’s US base of Ponte Vedra, Florida, Ripper GC plan to celebrate the end of a 2024 season that included teams victories in Adelaide and Singapore as well as the overall teams title.
Smith explained end-of-season concept to American reporters after his team’s win. “Mad Monday is a term we use in Australia for all the footy teams that exit the finals early or win,” Smith said. “The day after they’re done they generally will go up and dress up. It’s a costume party tomorrow. I don’t know what these guys will come as. It’s all a surprise. It’ll be a good day.”
“I’ve never been this scared in my life,” Leishman joked. Added Lucas Herbert: “I think it won’t be Mad Monday, I think it’ll be a period of sort of three or four days, a madness 72 hours. But yeah, I think the boys will have a good time.”
As the lead switched between Johnson’s 4 Aces, Kevin Na’s Iron Heads GC and Ripper GC repeatedly in the final moments, captain Smith and Herbert birdied the par-5 17th within moments of each other to take a two-shot lead. Johnson then drove into the water on the 18th to all but seal Ripper’s win.
Ripper GC finished the day at 11-under-par to claim the League’s $US14 million ($A 20 million) prize at Maridoe Golf Club over the 4Aces. Ripper GC were sent to victory by Smith’s four-under 68, Herbert’s three-under 69, and two-under 70s by each of Marc Leishman and Matt Jones.
“Mate, it’s so good,” Smith said. “I mean, not only great golfers but they’re better people. I think that’s what being a Ripper is all about. Just so happens that we’re good golfers, too. It’s a good combo. But to have those three guys out there today, or six other guys really to lean on trying to get the job done, there was something in me that was telling me that we were going to be all right.”
Added Herbert: “I don’t know what it is. I know for myself, I stood out there being like, I don’t want to be the worst score out here today; I don’t want to get in and the boys give me stick tomorrow and the next few weeks about being the one that cost us the trophy. I just think it’s great, healthy competition within each other just to push each other on as much as we can. For the other guys, excluding myself, three of the coolest cats under pressure I’ve ever seen. Watching Cam on that 18th tee, I was like, there’s not many other people I’d want playing this hole for us.”
Ripper GC denied the 4Aces a second LIV Golf Team Championship, given they also won the inaugural title in 2022. The Aces secured runner-up ahead of Iron Heads GC, who also finished at eight-under, because of a tiebreaker.
Ripper, as a team, won a whopping $A20 million, but as was the case in previous years, the prize money for the final championship of the year is split 60 percent toward the team to cover team expenses and 40 percent toward the players. Smith, Herbert, Jones and Leishman each won $A2 million.
Ripper GC: $14 million ($A20.6 million)
Team share: $8.4 million (60 percent … $A12.3 million)
Players share: $1.4 million per player ($A2 million)
Meanwhile, on the LPGA Tour, New Zealand’s Lydia Ko took out the Kroger Queen City Championship in Ohio for her 22nd LPGA victory – only a month after the Women’s Open Championship at St Andrews. Grace Kim was the top Australian at T-19. On the DP World Tour, Adam Scott was the best Australian at T-57 at three-under, 17 shots back of a playoff between Billy Horschel (winner), Rory McIlroy and South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence.
