A behind-the-scenes look at Cam Smith’s Ripper GC, including how the four-man Australian team prepared for season two of LIV Golf.
The debut season of Ripper GC, Cameron Smith’s new-look all-Australian team in the LIV Golf League, kicked off in Dubai in January. Smith, the reigning Open champion, and teammates Marc Leishman, Matt Jones and Jed Morgan joined several support staff for a training camp prior to the group contesting the Asian Tour’s Saudi International.
A training camp sounds serious, and parts of it were. But as Leishman says, there were plenty of shenanigans.
“There was a lot of laughing,” Leishman tells Australian Golf Digest of the boot camp, of which the on-course component was held at Trump International Golf Club in Dubai.
“We were gambling among each other on the course to stay sharp, because none of us likes losing money to one another. So, there were plenty of matches. We kept it light, too. There is a par-3 course [at Trump Dubai] and we had a few games there, but with some fun rules. Like, there were some holes where we’d get to the tee and the hole was only 100 metres and we had to hit a 4-iron. Stuff like that.”
It was an ideal setting for a team of Aussies embarking on a new tour, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, that has been rebranded to focus on teams and franchises so that it somewhat resembles Formula One’s racing teams. To do that, Smith and his squad added former Australian PGA Championship winner Jed Morgan to the team. South Australia’s Wade Ormsby, a DP World Tour and Asian Tour winner, was the fourth member of the team in LIV’s inaugural season but was not contracted past the first season and did not finish in the top 24 on the season-long points standings who maintain their LIV status. Smith and Ripper GC chose to go with 23-year-old Morgan and Ormsby is now one of LIV’s three reserves who fill in for injured players on any team who may need a substitute.
Leishman added: “Wade is a reserve for the league, and we still spend a decent amount of time with him; practice rounds, hanging out around events. It’s been great.”
Appearing recently on the “Talk Birdie to Me” podcast with Nick O’Hern and Mark Allen, Ormsby, who turns 43 on March 31, said he was completely understanding of the team restructure.
“LIV had [a season-long points standing], like an Order of Merit, where they have guys who are in the top 24 and they retain their status on the LIV Golf League for 2023 and that’s how a lot of guys retained their status going forward,” Ormsby said on the podcast. “I didn’t say I was off. So, it was pretty clear-cut from my end, irrespective of what people said – that I got ditched and that kind of stuff. I knew what the deal was, and that’s fine.”
Calling on the troops
Smith, Leishman, Jones and Morgan felt at ease during their practice sessions at the Trump Dubai course given it resembles some courses on the Melbourne Sandbelt. Gil Hanse and his design partner, Jim Wagner, crafted a rustic, links-style course using a large and cavernous barranca as the backbone of the routing.
“I really hadn’t spent much time in the Middle East before the start of last year [when he finished fourth at the 2022 Saudi International],” Smith said at the time. “It was unreal. I love it over there. It was my first time to Dubai. It was such a great city. We had a lot of fun and played some good golf courses.”
Besides money games and par-3 shootouts, there was plenty of dedicated performance work. Smith brought along the team’s musculoskeletal therapist, Nic Catterall, as well as mind coach, Jonah Oliver, and Smith’s long-time swing coach, Grant Field, to lead the physical and mental side of the camp. Catterall led several strength and conditioning exercises, including testing the hand-eye co-ordination of the four team members – on both sides of their body.
“Dubai was a really good chance for us to sharpen up as a team and get ready for these 14 tournaments on LIV this year,” Leishman added, speaking at LIV Golf’s season opener at Mexico’s Mayakoba Resort in late February.
“Having an offseason as a professional golfer is not something we’re used to. We didn’t want to be rusty in that first event of the year.”
Leishman won six times on the PGA Tour and finished joint second at the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews before joining LIV last year. Leishman’s exquisite short game and his ability to work his iron shots both ways has been built on very sound hand-eye co-ordination. But the Warrnambool lad said Catterall’s thorough tests identified a few things to work on – and a few laughs.
“We did some body screenings… and when you’re on your offseason, it can go one of two ways,” Leishman said of LIV’s break, which went from October after its finale in Miami to February’s season-opener in Mexico (although all 48 LIV players teed up at the Asian Tour’s Saudi International in January).
“My body stayed the same as last season. The body screenings were to make sure everything was in order. We now have these great programs in place to optimise our performance. It’s good now [that LIV players have a more spaced-out schedule] that we have the time to do the work. It’s really good to see where I can improve.
“Although,” Leishman adds before laughing, “the main thing I learned was that even though I have pretty good co-ordination on my right side, it was unbelievably different on my left side. It was very funny watching me hit a golf ball left-handed or throwing a tennis ball left-handed or kicking a footy left-footed. The boys got a lot of enjoyment out of that.”
A tightknit unit
Before the season-opener to LIV’s second stanza in February, Ripper GC congregated at Smith’s US home in Florida’s Ponte Vedra Beach area. Leishman travelled from his Virginia Beach base and Jones from his Arizona residence, while Morgan was already in Florida. The team and support staff all flew together to Mexico, and they intend on travelling together to all 14 LIV events this year.
“The team has a great camaraderie,” Leishman said. “Off the course, we are all spending a decent amount of time together at events and even outside of events. It’s nice to have that bond. At times, professional golf can get pretty lonely everywhere, not just the PGA Tour but any tour. I’ve played all around the world, from Australia to Korea to the Nationwide Tour and PGA Tour. I’ve found LIV to be a breath of fresh air in that the teams event makes you look forward to seeing the boys and playing for your mates on the course, and not just your own score.”
Added Ormsby on the aforementioned podcast: “I find myself refreshing the [Ripper] teams scores on the LIV app more than the individual scores.”
Leishman certainly responded well to the bootcamp training once on the ground in Mexico. He contributed the three best scores of any Ripper GC player at LIV Golf Mayakoba, which was held at a former PGA Tour tournament venue, the El Camaleon course at Playa del Carmen.
LIV’s teams format sees the three best scores from four team members count each day at their 54-hole events. Ripper GC finished fifth, while Charles Howell III recorded his first $US4 million LIV victory in the individual component while his teammates on Crushers GC – Bryson DeChambeau, Anirban Lahiri and Paul Casey – split the $US3 million for their win in the teams’ event.
“It wasn’t a bad start for our first event,” Leishman said of the fifth placing. “Especially considering El Camaleon was not a good course for a lot of us on Ripper GC. It was not penalising around the greens but it was very penalising off the tee. A lot of our games shine from the fairway and into the green, so it was lopsided for us. We are best suited on courses that are longer and wider.”
A captain’s calling
For Smith, captaining Ripper GC has been a unique and unfamiliar opportunity. Smith left the PGA Tour for LIV last year as a six-time winner, three of which he recorded in 2022 including the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews. Smith had long craved an extended offseason in Australia, having moved to the US full-time in 2016, and LIV offered that.
The 29-year-old spent most of his offseason in his native Brisbane, taking The Open’s claret jug around the Australian PGA Championship and Australian Open, as well as to family, friends and fans in Queensland in his spare time. He took part in plenty of fishing, travelling, introducing his American girlfriend Shanel to extended family and a bit of social golf at Wantima Country Club in Brisbane’s northern suburbs. He also spent plenty of time on the phone, organising Ripper GC’s rebrand and changes for LIV’s sophomore season. Last year, the side was called Punch GC.
“It was a little bit different,” Smith said in January about his captaincy role. “I guess it [was] an offseason for golf but it kind of seemed like I was on the phone every day talking about something to do with the team. It’s been really exciting. The more it progresses, the more I’ll get used to it.”
During LIV’s season-opener in Mexico, Smith also said Ripper GC had come a long way since he debuted as their skipper at LIV’s Boston event in September, when Smith missed out on a playoff by one shot, which Dustin Johnson won. Smith claimed his first LIV victory in the next tournament in Chicago only weeks later.
“As a team, we progressed a lot in the offseason,” Smith said referring to the team but also to the four individuals. Smith won the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland in late November, ending his 2022 season with three PGA Tour wins, a LIV victory and a third career Australian PGA victory. Leishman finished tied 12th at Royal Queensland before a tie for sixth at the Saudi International in January.
“Being a captain, it’s definitely a bigger challenge,” Smith says. “We finished second [at the LIV Golf teams finale at Doral] in Miami last year and it’d be nice for us if we had a really good year and keep those good results going as a team. With so many good players and the way the teams scoring is formatted, you have to make so many birdies. We really need to focus on giving ourselves as many opportunities to score on each hole as individuals to help the team. It’s exciting. I can’t wait to get down to Adelaide as well. I want to show Aussies what LIV Golf is all about.”
Home is where the heart is
This month’s LIV Golf event in South Australia was one of the lures for Smith in joining LIV last September. LIV will take its 48-player roster, which includes big names like Smith, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Phil Mickelson and others to Adelaide from April 21-23, two weeks after the Masters at Augusta National. The event will be held at Grange Golf Club, where LIV Golf chief executive and two-time Major winner Greg Norman won his first event as a professional in 1976. A Singapore event will be held the week after.
For Smith, playing his best golf in April is top of his priorities. From April 6-9, Smith will be one of 16 LIV golfers to tee it up at the Masters after Augusta National announced it would not alter its criteria for invitations to exclude LIV golfers, which some thought it might have done. None of the four Majors in 2023 will exclude LIV golfers.
Smith is determined to atone for last year when he added to his stellar, but winless, record at Augusta National, which includes a tie for second in 2020 as well as three other top-10 results. Smith contended through the first three rounds and got himself into the final group with American Scottie Scheffler last year. After birdies on the first two holes in the final round, Smith came within one shot of Scheffler’s lead but faded to a tie for third, allowing the Texan to don the green jacket for his maiden Major victory. Although Smith would win the Open at St Andrews months later, he remains as hungry as ever to win the Masters.
“I’m really lucky in that, for me, the Masters and LIV Golf Adelaide are around a similar time,” Smith says. “I’ll have the Masters, and then a week off, and then we’ll all head to Australia for LIV Adelaide. There’ll be a lot of preparation leading into April. I really want to keep this form from last year going into Augusta and Adelaide.”
Smith and Ripper GC will have played two more LIV events before Smith heads to Augusta National. He said just being in contention at LIV’s Arizona and Orlando stops would be enough, when combined with his home preparation, to arrive at Augusta feeling confident.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said when asked if getting tested under pressure in the lead-up to April is what he’d like to experience on-course in the first three months of 2023. “It’d be nice to be in contention a few times leading up to Augusta, for sure. The nerves may be a little bit different, or they may be the same as last year [at the Masters]. I’m not really sure. I’m hoping I can do much more of the same as I did last year.”
Like Smith, Leishman also has LIV Adelaide pencilled in his calendar. The tournament, which was wrested away from potential host venues Sydney and Queensland, has sold out already with about 20,000 fans expected to attend each of the three days. Tournament officials may increase its crowd capacity.
Leishman said he was over the moon at being home in Australia in April due to the AFL season being underway, which he has not experienced since moving to the US in 2008. That was back when he played on the then-Nationwide Tour as a stepping-stone to his successful PGA Tour career.
“I’m excited about that whole trip, the tournament and everything about going back to Australia,” Leishman said. “I’ll be getting back to Australia during football season for the first time since… I believe 2007. I’m so pumped for the tournament. The crowds are a going to be huge and they’re going to get a good show. They’ll enjoy themselves for the golf, but also because LIV is about the whole spectacle – the party and the music acts. You could go to LIV Golf Adelaide and not see a golf shot and still have a great day. Plus, there’ll be Leishman Lager [Leishman’s own beer] at the course, so that’s a good thing [laughs].”
POTENTIAL FOR MORE AUSSIES ON LIV?
LIV Golf has revealed the format of the qualifying school for its 2024 season, with Major champions from the past five years, as well as winners of PGA Tour and DP World Tour events in the 12 months prior, among those given exemptions to bypass the first of four rounds. The 72-hole strokeplay qualifier, called the “LIV Golf Promotions Event”, will be held sometime in November after the LIV Golf League’s second season concludes in Saudi Arabia on November 5.
Exemption Categories
The following categories will be exempt into the LIV Golf Promotions event at the stage outlined below:
• Players finishing in positions 2-32 of the 2023 International Series Rankings
• Players finishing in positions 6-32 of the International Series Rankings
• Players finishing in positions 2-5 of the International Series Rankings
• Players finishing in positions 45-48 of the 2023 Individual League Rankings
• Winner of the most recent staging of these championships: US Amateur Championship; British Amateur Championship; NCAA D1 Individual Strokeplay Championship; Latin-America Amateur Championship; Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship; European Amateur Championship; Eisenhower Individual Championship
• Players ranked within the top 200 of the Official World Golf Ranking at close of entries
• Players ranked within the top 20 of the World Amateur Golf Rankings at close of entries
• Winners of fully sanctioned events on the DP World Tour or PGA Tour in the previous season
• Winners of these tournaments since 2018: Open Championship; US Open; Masters; PGA Championship
• Members of the most recent edition of the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup
HOW TO WATCH
LIV Golf Adelaide will be broadcast live across the Seven Network (including 7Mate) and on demand via the 7plus app. Check local guides. You can also stream coverage via the LIVGolf+ app.
