Cam Smith Looks for Bounceback at LIV Golf’s Super Bowl

The 2022 British Open champion suffered through a brutal 2025 and will hope for a boost in his native Australia, where LIV Golf has its most popular event.

Cam Smith will be a headliner as LIV Golf plays in Australia this week. | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

Even in the somewhat comfy setting of the LIV Golf League, where at least you can lean on teammates for camaraderie and competitiveness, the 2025 golf season was about as trying as it gets for Cam Smith.

The 2022 British Open champion who jumped to LIV Golf later that year, Smith suffered through a trying 2025. And that’s putting it mildly.

He missed the cut in all four major championships. At one point, he missed seven straight in Official World Golf Ranking events. He didn’t win any LIV events and finished well down the individual standings.

And he went basically a year without earning an OWGR point until he finished second at the Australian Open in December—where he three-putted the final hole at Royal Melbourne to miss a playoff by a stroke.

“I just needed a flick of a switch and some confidence,” Smith said during a preseason interview. “I guess, I just lost a lot of confidence in my game. Yeah, it's just ... it's just hard work.”

Smith is back in his native Australia this week where LIV Golf plays one of its biggest events in Adelaide, the town that has embraced the LIV Golf League to the highest level.

His Ripper GC team is coming off a team victory last week in Riyadh, where Aussie teammate and newcomer Elvis Smylie prevailed in the season-opening event. Smith tied for 13th.

But it was after the Aussie Open where he took some time to reflect and reset.

“I had a while to sit down after the season and really think about my season,” he said. “I didn’t have a win. I don’t think I had a top three. But I had a ton of top-10s and it doesn’t mean that there’s great golf, but it means that there’s great golf just around the corner, and I don’t think I had to really change much to get anything else out of it, right.

“You just keep doing what you’re doing, you believe in what you’re doing and I had a great week at the Aussie Open and almost won there and it was nice to finish the year off in that style and that’s made me really excited and motivated for this year. I think that’s what I kind of what I needed out of my game, to be in contention and hit a lot of good shots under pressure and did all the right things. It just didn’t quite go my way at the end.”

The low point was probably the British Open at Royal Portrush.

Cameron Smith missed the cut at all four majors in 2025. | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

“I would say the Open probably sucked the most, particularly after three pretty poor, major performances, and then going there again, feeling not too bad, but not confident, but felt like I had the game to go there and compete and not do it,” Smith said. “That just kind of knocked the confidence out of me probably a touch more and kind of it drew the last end of the season out for me on leave.

“It felt like those last three or four events there ... it took a while to get over and I was really just looking for anything, a bit of a bit of confidence, a bit of a run of birdies or a bit of a run of putts to go in and it just never really seemed to happen.

“And I think the more that happens, the more you try and then it’s just like a compounding type of thing like I said that week in Australia felt like I just kind of let go and. I didn’t do anything different, just felt like I let go and got a ton of momentum behind me and it felt like my game was back just like that.”

The week prior, Smith had missed the cut at the Australian PGA, a seventh consecutive in OWGR events and a cruel blow in not only home country but his hometown of Brisbane.

It was especially tough given the poor results to that date. In addition to all the missed cuts, Smith had not really contended in a LIV event, with a tie for fifth his best result.

“Obviously that narrative has been out there, been struggling, what have you,” he said. It was it was (lousy) to have those weeks, particularly at home. To miss the cut there in Brisbane, my hometown ... I have family and friends there that that kind of stings a little bit.

“But I worked hard that weekend and went down to Melbourne early and did all the right things and like I said, it didn’t feel like my game was that far off. It’s just that I’d lost a ton of confidence through the year and ... it all felt like it kind of came back that week. They say that good golf is one good swing away and it definitely felt like it that week and I’ve just made sure I've kept working hard over the past few weeks. I’m trying to keep the mojo going.”

The rebound at the Australian Open was a boost, even though he came up short in the end when he had a birdie putt to win but ended up a shot behind Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen.

“It's a funny game sometimes,” Smith said. “Sometimes you play good and other times you don't play so good and I don't think there was a lot of bad. There just wasn't a lot of great. It was just a lot of mediocre, I guess, which obviously isn't what you want, but it wasn't that far away.”

He does seem a good bit removed from that epic 2022 season that saw him win the Players Championship, the Open at St. Andrews and five tournaments overall. (In fact, it was the Open victory that meant the PGA Tour included him among those it would allow back this year as part of its Returning Member Program that has seen Brooks Koepka return.)

Smith won three events in his first two years as part of LIV Golf but none the past two seasons, leading to the inevitable talk that the big-money bonus as well as the no-cut big purse LIV events caused Smith to regress.

“I think it’s close to naïve to think that that's going to happen every year,” he said. “I definitely draw off some stuff that I did that year, but not all years work like that. You’ve seen it through everyone’s careers. Everyone has a bad year or two. Everyone goes through some slumps and I feel like that slump is not going to dictate my career. It’s just going to make what happens next a little bit better and I can’t wait for that.”