Australian superstar Cameron Smith’s LIV Golf team gets a new – and VERY Australian – nickname
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Australian superstar Cameron Smith’s LIV golf team gets a new – and VERY Australian – name as fans revel in the USA team changing its label to RangeGoats
- Cameron Smith nicknamed his LIV Golf team “Ripper GC”
- Fellow Australians Marc Leishman and Matt Jones are part of the squad
- LIV Golf will organize a new league of 14 tournaments this year
- Tension continues with PGA Tour, LIV made no revenue in 2022
Cameron Smith has announced the name of the LIV Golf team he will lead ahead of the upcoming season – and it has a unique Australian flavor.
Smith, 29, nicknamed his team – made up of compatriots Marc Leishman and Matt Jones – “Ripper GC”.
The 2022 Open Championship winner defected to LIV Golf last year for a reported $140m – and the affable Queenslander was also given a 25% stake in the all-Australian team by CEO Greg Norman.
A total of 12 teams will take part, with Bubba Watson’s choice of name raising eyebrows.
The 44-year-old – who won the Masters in 2012 and 2014 – opted for RangeGoats, which drew widespread criticism on social media.
“It’s much worse than I could have imagined. As a fan it’s very sad to see,’ one bemused fan tweeted.
Cameron Smith has announced the name of his LIV Golf team ahead of the upcoming season – and it has a distinct Aussie flavor
Rival captain and two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson has chosen to call his US team the RangeGoats
Another said: ‘I laughed for two minutes straight because of it. It’s unreal. I really thought it was a joke.
Meanwhile, despite shelling out nearly $1 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund to start the separatist league, LIV’s revenue was “virtually zero” in its first season, he said. emerged.
Determined not to turn around, LIV Golf goes after the PGA.
“The (PGA) Tour damaged LIV’s brand, drove up its costs by hundreds of millions of dollars and reduced its revenue to virtually zero,” a court document filed by LIV Golf’s attorneys revealed.
They also accused the PGA of undermining the careers of several players on the Tour, including fellow Australian Matt Jones.
Sydney-based Jones, 42, was one of several players suspended by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan after playing LIV Golf events last year without an official release.
The LIV Golf League, which has grown from an eight-event invitational series in 2022 to a 14-tournament league this year, begins Feb. 24 in Mexico.