World No. 2 and Open Championship winner Cameron Smith is “gone” to the LIV Golf Series at the end of the PGA playoffs, Cameron Percy said on Tuesday.
Percy said Smith, 28, and another fellow Australian, Marc Leishman, already have signed deals to exit the PGA Tour.
“Unfortunate, yeah, they’re gone,” Percy told RSN radio.
Percy said the humanitarian element of the Saudi-backed circuit weighs on him.
“The more and more you look into it, some people don’t care, some people have got a conscience and do care,’ he said. “It really comes down to, you know, ‘They just executed 80 people this week, just chopped their heads off’. They’re not the nicest people in the world. “Do you just look past that and go, ‘Oh well, I’m rich I don’t really care’. It’s a tough one, it really is.”
Percy, 48, finished in the top 10 at the Wyndham Championship last week, just ahead of the start of the FedEx Playoffs this week.
Percy said a conversation with Adam Scott, who is on the record saying he would consider a move to LIV Golf, helped open the eyes of his fellow countrymen to the new tour. He also said the deals for Smith and the 38-year-old Leishman, currently ranked No. 56 in the world, are lucrative. FOX Sports reported Smith was offered $100 million-plus.
“(Scott) said he met with these guys (LIV reps) in 2017 — they were ready (to) do all this. So, the tour has known for a long time that this stuff is in the works,” Percy said.
–Field Level Media
