Robert TheodorsonLIV’s second experiment with night golf in the capital city resulted in 23-year-old Elvis Smylie winning the season opener with a score of 24-under par.
Behind Smylie’s winning effort, Ripper won the team competition with a total score of 69-under par with cumulative scores from LIV’s first four-day, 72-hole competition. The 2024 Team Champions gelled together with four great individual performances: Smylie (-24), Herbert (-17), Smith (-15), and Leishman (-13).
The win was Smylie’s first since the 2024 BMW Australian PGA Championship, the same contest in which the youngster beat his now-captain, Cam Smith.
Jon Rahm made a late final round push with a score of 63 but ultimately could not catch Smylie who refused to take his foot off the gas once he had captured the lead.
Recent LIV signee Thomas Detry (7th; 19-under par) spent most of the opening two rounds leading with veteran LIV Golfer Peter Uihlein (3rd; 21-under par) either on equal standing or right behind chasing.
League Gets Boost from New Signees
Other than having the biggest offseason addition come away with an immediate trophy, newcomers to the league Thomas Detry (4 Aces), Ben An (Korean), and Richard Lee (Wild Card) all spent significant time atop the leaderboard and contending throughout the week.
Detry, formerly of the PGA Tour who won the Waste Management Phoenix Open last year, established his presence early during the opening round, posting a flawless 7-under par 65 to take and keep the lead throughout the first two days.
Ben An, LIV’s newest captain who overtook the rebranded Korean squad (former the Iron Heads) gave the team a much needed shot in the arm by giving the team a mainstay that can consistently record under-par rounds. An finished T9; 17-under par while Korean took a respectable T8 finish, a much-needed improvement over their usual last place finishes over the course of the past few seasons.
Official World Golf Rankings Points Earned
On February 3rd, the Governing Board of the OWGR announced that the Top 10 finishers (and ties) will now earn points from every unique tournament. Pre-Monday projections put the winner, Elvis Smylie, set to receive approximately 23 points while the 10th-place finisher (actually three T9’s in Ben An, Lucas Herbert, and Branden Grace) is set to receive approximately 2.8 points.
Before Saturday’s conclusion, Smylie sat at 134th place in OWGR. The win is expected to give Smylie a significant boost in the standings, somewhere around the low 100s before the rankings are updated after the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open and the DP World Tour’s Dubai Masters.
Takeaways from the Season Opener
- Jon Rahm’s 419-yard drive will likely stand as the longest drive of the season for some time.
- The Philippines’ Miguel Tabuena (T48; 6-under par) filled the open roster spot on the 4 Aces vacated by Patrick Reed. It appears as if Dustin Johnson will fill the spot on a rotational basis as opposed to naming/signing a full-time replacement for the time being.
- Without Phil Mickelson, the HyFlyers finished an embarrassing dead last with a cumulative score of 14-under par a far cry from the second worst score belonging to the Cleeks who finished a second to last place 26-under par. HyFlyers member Brendan Steele was the only member of the field to finish 72 holes over par, with a final score of 4-over par.
- The first three rounds required U.S.-based viewers to once again change channels mid-broadcast. Final round Saturday went head-to-head with the first full day of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
LIV Adelaide Ready to Host Golf’s Biggest Party
The field heads to Adelaide next week (February 12- 15), site of LIV’s traditionally most attended, and arguably most popular tournament of the season.
After Adelaide the field gets a short break before embarking on a busy March which features three tournaments in three weeks.
