LIV defectors get love, handshakes, and hugs at the Masters as they seek major validation

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Fred Couples isn’t going to start a food fight at the Champions’ Dinner Tuesday. Rory McIlroy won’t taunt rival tour star Dustin Johnson, a la John Cena, if Rors happens to bury DJ on Sunday afternoon. Five-time winner Tiger Woods is unlikely to punch three-time winner Phil Mickelson in the nose if they’re paired together in the first round Thursday morning.

For this week, at least, there is a truce between LIV Golf and PGA Tour players. It is, after all, the Masters.

“Lots of handshakes. Lots of smiles and hugs,” said reigning British Open champion Cam Smith after his practice session Monday.

At No. 6 in the world, Smith is the top-ranked LIV golfer in the field. Signing the affable, 29-year-old Australian for a reported $100 million in October was a coup for LIV, but he fretted that his peers might be salty when they saw him this week. “I wasn’t really sure, to be honest.”

It was wasted worry.

“It was just a really nice experience,” Smith said. “I don’t think there’s any kind of hatred going on between the players.”

Not here at Augusta National, the closest thing to golf heaven. Not at the place where LIV players can find a measure of salvation.

The PGA Tour has banned all LIV golfers, but all four major tournaments decided to allow any LIV qualifiers to participate. Eighteen are at the Masters. Validation of LIV lies squarely in their performances in the majors — especially this one.

The Masters always seemed most likely to provide LIV-ers their best chance to win a major. It has a tiny, top-heavy field. It affords familiarity, as it’s the only major played at the same site every year. And, unlike the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship, the atmosphere at Augusta National, from players to patrons, always will be welcoming. The Green Jackets — the members who police the grounds, from Magnolia Lane to Amen Corner to Butler Cabin and the 18 holes in between — would have it no other way.

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“Augusta National is first class,” Smith said. “That’s what we kind of expected this week.”

From the fans, yes. From the (fr)enemies? After all, things aren’t quite as rosy as Smith presented them.

Last week, 2020 U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau said Tiger cut him off. Mickelson, the $200 million big fish who started the string of superstar defections, wasn’t on the grounds Monday; he didn’t play last year after his controversial comments were leaked concerning LIV and the PGA Tour. How he’s treated by the likes of Tiger and Rory will go far toward setting a tone for the week.

Then again, the Augusta mystique might compel everyone to play nice.

“I would love to be paired with Phil,” said Couples, who called Mickelson a “nutbag,” and called Sergio Garcia a “clown” last month after they criticized the PGA Tour. “I mean, he’s one of the best players that ever played.”

The scene is calm for now, but Smith was wise to anticipate antipathy. Players and executives from both tours have exchanged barbs regarding several issues, from the quality of golf LIV presents, the threat of LIV to the PGA Tour, the financial implications their coexistence have spurred, and the moral compromise of playing for a Tour backed by the government of an oppressive theocracy like Saudi Arabia.

Lawsuits between the parties are the norm, and the LIV offices have been particularly divisive. For instance, on Sunday, LIV CEO Greg Norman told NewsCorp that, if a LIV player was poised to win Sunday evening, the other LIV players would gather in solidarity behind the 18th green to cheer him on. Then again, Norman has been full of pimento cheese for much of his life. Smith knew nothing about Norman’s plan.

“There definitely hasn’t been a conversation with me,” Smith said.

There will be a lot of long-term enmity, but all animosity was absent on a moist, overcast Monday at the Masters. Not that there weren’t undercurrents of tension.

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LIV golfers know they’re under a microscope. Augusta National didn’t announce until December that they would allow all players who qualified for the Masters to participate, but the announcement was embedded in a scathing remonstrance directed at the defectors and the LIV Tour. LIV players wore LIV gear Monday and will continue to do so unless Augusta National officials deem them improper. Smith knows his outfits brand him as a black sheep, and he’s prepared.

“I have another set of clothes made up without them. We haven’t heard much from Augusta National about the logos,” Smith said, and pointed at his official Masters escort. “Unless it’s a problem for these guys, I’m gonna wear them.”

DeChambeau wore his LIV gear to no ill effect. He said he got hugs from practice partners Scottie Scheffler, the defending champion, and Sam Burns, who won two weeks ago on the PGA Tour.

“Unbelievable. Everybody has been fantastic,” DeChambeau said. “I’ve had no issues.”

“I just think there’s too much rubbish going on,” Smith said. “There’s a lot of stuff going on at the moment that doesn’t need to be going on, especially in the media.”

Balderdash, said Shane Lowry.

“I’m not saying the media hyped it up,” Lowry said. “There’s a lot there to hype up.”

That’s why it’s crucial to the LIV-ers and their masters that they shine come Sunday. They are irrelevant almost every other Sunday.

They play three-day tournaments with 48-man fields with maybe eight players who belong among the top 50 in the world (LIV events currently carry no world ranking points). There are no cuts for these dudes wearing Bermuda shorts, playing on courses that make munis look posh, with music blasting in the background during play. All they need is two-beer hats, John Daly, and kegs on the tee boxes.

It’s impossible to take this brand of golf seriously.

”I think it’s just important for the LIV guys to be up there,” Smith admitted. “There’s a lot of chatter about ‘These guys don’t play real golf. These guys don’t play real golf courses.’ "

That chatter is accurate. Consider their biggest names.

Former world No. 1 golfers Johnson and Brooks Koepka were trending down when they signed with LIV. So was DeChambeau, 29, and Patrick Reed, the 32-year-old 2018 Masters champ. Mickelson became the oldest player to win a major when he won the 2021 PGA at 50, but right now his game stinks like Friday fish on Sunday night.

The best hopes?

Koepka, 32, won the LIV event in Orlando on Sunday, and with four majors from 2017-19, he’s probably the most talented of the LIV participants. Johnson won the 2020 Masters in the autumn of COVID, his second major, and while he’s 38, he’s been LIV’s best player. Smith arguably was the hottest player on the planet when he left for LIV, but he’s finished in the middle of the pack in his last two LIV starts.

Significantly, though, Smith has finished tied for second, tied for 10th, and tied for third the past three Masters, and he wasn’t always playing his best in the weeks before.

“This is my happy place,” he said of Augusta National.

So is LIV, particularly after Monday’s unexpectedly warm welcome.

“I’ve made my bed, and I’m very, very happy where I am.”

» READ MORE: How Donald Trump, Bryson DeChambeau, and Patrick Reed gave LIV Golf life