Cam Smith to join Greg Norman’s LIV tour, fellow golfer says
|
World No.2 and British Open Championship winner Cameron Smith is “gone” to the LIV Golf tour, according to fellow golfer Cameron Percy.
Percy says Smith, 28, and another Australian, Marc Leishman, already have signed deals and will switch after the PGA playoffs.
“Unfortunate, yeah, they’re gone,” Percy told RSN radio in Melbourne.
Percy said the humanitarian element of the Saudi-backed circuit weighs on him.
“The more and more you look into it, some people don’t care, some people have got a conscience and do care,’ he said.
“It really comes down to, you know, ‘they just executed 80 people this week, just chopped their heads off’. They’re not the nicest people in the world.
“Do you just look past that and go, ‘Oh well, I’m rich I don’t really care’. It’s a tough one, it really is.”
Last month, in his media conference after winning the Open, Smith bristled when asked if he was joining the LIV tour.
“I just won the British Open, and you’re asking about that. I think that’s pretty not that good,” Smith said, before being pressed further.
“I don’t know, mate. My team around me worries about all that stuff. I’m here to win golf tournaments.”
The preliminary schedule for the inaugural 2023 LIV Golf tour features a tournament in Australia.
Smith was urged last month by compatriot and fellow British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch to reject the LIV tour offer.
Greg Norman, an idol of Smith’s and Australia’s most recent British Open champion in 1993, is the CEO and face of LIV Golf.
Normna has said Tiger Woods turned down an offer of around $A1 billion to play in the breakaway tour.
Percy, 48, finished in the top 10 at the Wyndham Championship last week, just ahead of the start of the FedEx Playoffs this week.
Percy said a conversation with Adam Scott, who is on the record saying he would consider a move to LIV Golf, helped open the eyes of his fellow countrymen to the new tour.
He also said the deals for Smith and the 38-year-old Leishman, currently ranked No. 56 in the world, are lucrative.
OX Sports reported Smith was offered $100 million-plus.
“(Scott) said he met with these guys (LIV reps) in 2017 — they were ready (to) do all this. So, the tour has known for a long time that this stuff is in the works,” Percy said.
Reuters
