The fourth edition of the lucrative route on Saudi Saudi begins on Thursday, and its players practiced under the headlights, preparing to cope with the Riydah golf course at night.
In the capital of Saudi Arabia, the Australian quartet of Smith, Lucas Herbert, Marc Leishman and Matt Jones – also known as “Ripper GC” – who defend the title of the team that won last year.
Their captain Smith, former open champion and players, loves the aspect of the LIV Golf team, but also wants to make sure that his personal campaign in 2025 has taken place without an individual triumph since 2020.
“I don’t like to put too much pressure on myself,” says Smith. “I think that I just expect to prepare well and work as hard as possible and be competitive, I will be there on Sundays and I hope that I will receive a few wins.
“It was my first season without a victory for some time, so it was definitely in my head.”
His victory with his colleagues from Australians helped to make up for it in 2024, when the quartet won three times, and they want to repeat their general triumph, with particular emphasis on the next stop of the route after Riyadh at home at Adelaide.
The South Australian event was moved from mid -April to next week, and Rippers willingly began to start.
“Our team’s conversation, since we finished, was to prepare for Adelaide,” said Smith.
“We usually had three or four events before Adelaide and we had some time for the speed of things. This year no. ready.”
Rippers began slowly last year, not scoring points in three of the first five events before they triumphed in Adelaide playoffs.
“We came up, I would say slow or insane until the start of the year last year,” said Jones. “We want to start with a better start and be ready to really go out in Adelaide.”
The quartet gathered in January in Florida to spend time together, and Leishman flew from his base in Virginia.
“I think we will be better prepared for the first few events this year compared to last year,” he said. “Adelaide is definitely an additional motivation for this.”
This year, Liv Golf changed the format of team scoring, and the result of each player in each round counts to the complete result of the team, unlike previous campaigns, as soon as the three best team results were downloaded in the first two rounds.
Route officials also celebrated the US Open announcement on Wednesday that the event would offer a dismissal from the leading Golf Liv player for competition.
So the best LIV player, who is not released differently and is located in the top three of the 19th class, will win a place in the field in Oakmont on June 12-15.
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