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Report: British Open champion Cameron Smith signs $100M deal to join LIV Golf

By Jason Owens

Cameron Smith besa el trofeo de campeón del Abierto Británico en St. Andrews, Escocia, el domingo 17 de julio de 2022. (AP Foto/Peter Morrison)

By Jason Owens

British Open champion Cameron Smith has signed a $100 million deal to join LIV Golf, The Telegraph reports.

The signing marks another significant win for the controversial Saudi-backed golf league as it secures the services of a reigning major champion and one of the game's rising stars. Smith, 28, is a six-time winner on the PGA Tour. The Australian is less than four weeks removed from securing the British Open with a remarkable display of putting on the back nine at St. Andrews on Sunday to wrest the championship from Rory McIlroy.

After winning his first major title, Smith faced questioning about rumors that he was in negotiations with LIV Golf. Smith bristled at the inquiry.

"I just won the British Open, and you're asking about that," Smith responded. "I think that's pretty not that good. I don't know, mate. My team around me worries about all that stuff. I'm here to win golf tournaments."

Smith joins other high-profile defectors from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf including fellow major winners Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed. The players have made the jump thanks to lucrative guaranteed deals such as Smith's. The PGA Tour, meanwhile, has suspended players who sign with LIV Golf from competing.

Eleven LIV Golf players including Mickelson and DeChambeau filed a federal antitrust suit against the PGA Tour challenging those suspensions. Three of those players — Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Matt Jones — joined the suit as they sought to play in the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs that start Thursday. The winner of this year's FedEx Cup championship — a season-long contest — is slated to take home $18 million. Opening arguments in the lawsuit were being heard in a U.S. district court as news of Smith's deal with LIV Golf broke.

LIV Golf competitors face criticism for joining a league that's funded by a Saudi Arabian government with a considerable track record of human rights abuses. The league itself is criticized as a "sportswashing" effort to legitimize the Saudi regime on a world stage.

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