Cameron Smith join LIV Golf
Several members of the International Presidents Cup team will be visiting LIV Golf, according to sources.
ATHENS - Several sources have confirmed to GolfChannel.com that Cameron Smith and at least five other PGA Tour players will join LIV Golf the following week.
Smith, the champion of this year's Open Championship and Players Championship, has been linked to the Saudi-backed league for weeks, and the rumors have only intensified due to his distant responses to probing questions about his transfer to LIV.
At the first playoff game in Memphis two weeks ago, Smith said, "I have no comment to that." I'm in town to compete in the FedExCup Playoffs. I've been concentrating on that for the past week and a half, and that's what I'm here to do.
Smith is slated to compete in the fourth LIV event, which will take place next week outside of Boston, but he continued to withhold comment after his third round at the Tour Championship.
Also confirmed by sources as joining the breakaway league the following week are Mito Pereira, Marc Leishman, Harold Varner III, Cameron Tringale, and Joaquin Niemann. Niemann said to GolfChannel.com on Friday at East Lake that he wasn't sure if he would join LIV, and SI.com reported that Pereira isn't expected to play in the LIV competition the following week. On Saturday, Pereira wrote on Instagram that he was "happy and honored to be a member of the international Presidents Cup team" .
The most recent wave of defections will have a disastrous effect on the International Presidents Cup team, even if Pereira decides to play at Quail Hollow before taking part in his first LIV Golf competition. For Trevor Immelman's team, Smith, Niemann, and Pereira were all among the top 8 automatic qualifiers. Leishman, a veteran of four teams, would be one of the candidates for one of Immelman's four wild-card selections.
Immelman said in a statement to GolfChannel.com that he was "selected by our players to lead the International team to the best of my abilities" and that he would "fully carry out this honor." "The twelve players who want to compete in the Presidents Cup are the only ones over whose experience I have any control. We have devoted two years of our lives—my wife and I, our support team, and our players, caddies, and families—to making this Presidents Cup a fantastic week for everyone involved."
Immelman will be given more captain's picks since the International team qualifiers were decided upon last week, according to a Tour representative.
Tour participants violate the rules of the circuit regarding competing events by participating in a LIV event, not just by signing up for the league, which has resulted in numerous, lengthy suspensions for players. Presidents Cup participation is among the suspensions. There is a tournament in Chicago the week before the Presidents Cup in addition to the LIV Golf event in Boston the following week.
Tags: Golf - LIV Golf - Presidents Cup-Boston -Chicago
