2025 LIV Golf Season Preview: Smash GC

The 2025 LIV Golf League season starts Feb. 6 in Riyadh. Here’s a quick look at Brooks Koepka’s Smash GC.

OVERVIEW

Lineup

• Brooks Koepka (Captain), USA
• Talor Gooch, USA
• Jason Kokrak, USA
• Graeme McDowell, Northern Ireland

Who’s New? No one. This is the carryover lineup from the 2024 season after Gooch and McDowell joined the team during the previous offseason. The club recently announced new contracts for Kokrak and McDowell.

The Offseason: Koepka partnered with Crushers GC Captain Bryson DeChambeau to play in The Showdown match against PGA Tour stars Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler … Kokrak finished T9 at the PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers; Gooch and McDowell also competed … Gooch continued building his sports portfolio by buying the Mississippi Blues Angling Club in the Sports Fishing Championship … Gooch turned 33 on Nov. 14.

Going to be a good year if … the team finds any kind of consistency. The pieces are there.

ALL-TIME RESULTS

Trophies Won

TEAM (3)
2022 Jeddah
2024 Las Vegas
2024 Greenbrier

INDIVIDUAL (5)
2022 Jeddah – Koepka
2023 Orlando – Koepka
2023 Jeddah – Koepka
2024 Singapore – Koepka
2024 Greenbrier – Koepka

ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Brooks is Brooks – The captain is LIV Golf’s winningest individual, having won 5 times in 32 regular-season starts. Maybe this year he finally wins the season-long race.

That 1-2 punch – If Gooch returns to 2023 form (three wins as a RangeGoat during his Individual Championship run), the team could have the league’s best 1-2 punch (although Legion XIII might debate it).

Top 30 depth – You might be surprised to know that Smash was the only team in 2024 in which all four players finished inside the top 30 in individual points.

Average-age profile – Smash enters this year with an average age of 37.75. That’s in the same range as the first three LIV Golf team champions.

OPPORTUNITIES

Puzzling finish – For all the improvements Smash made in its roster in 2024, the team finished last at the Team Championship in Dallas after being upset as the 4th seed in the quarterfinals, then shooting a collective 12-over in the all-scores count final round.

When Brooks wasn’t Brooks – Koepka made the most of his opportunities when in position to win, but he wasn’t happy with his overall play. He twice finished outside the top 40, costing him a potential bonus-paying points position. He ended the season shooting 80 in the final round in Dallas. And he didn’t win a major. An extra-motivated Brooks is a scary thought for everyone else.

Putting woes – The team ranked 12th in the league in putting, which helps explain why they were 11th in birdies made.

WORTH NOTING

ASSISTANT TO THE GM? Brooks Koepka is both captain and general manager of Smash – and he considers himself fortunate to have a sounding-board/unofficial assistant in Graeme McDowell. “He helps take some things off my plate,” said Koepka. “I can’t be good at everything. Nobody’s good at everything. But where I lack, G-Mac excels. Everybody on the team picks up each other.”

GOOCH’S STABILITY. For the first time in his LIV Golf career, Talor Gooch remained with the same team through the offseason. It’s also the first time he doesn’t have to adjust to new teammates, as the Smash roster remains intact from 2024. “It’s good to have that year-over-year camaraderie, to have the same goals and ideals and intentions,” Gooch said. “We’re all on the same page, and it’s exciting to prove that we’re better than what we were last year.”

DONE WITH TINKERING. Jason Kokrak experimented with some new irons last year. It did not go well. “Just weren’t suited for me,” he recalled, “so I kind of got into a little bit of a funk.” He also tried out different putters in hopes of improving his success on the greens. Nothing really clicked. This year, the experiments are over. “Just sticking with working harder with the stuff that I have that’s better suited for me than tinkering around trying new stuff,” he said.

AGGRESSIVE G-MAC. An original LIV Golf member, McDowell struggled to adapt to the more aggressive mindset needed in the league’s shorter 54-hole tournaments. “Whereas I think of my style of play being more of a grinder, more of a middle-of-the-green mentality, I’ve realized that doesn’t really work on this tour,” he said. His breakthrough moment came last year in Houston when he tied for sixth and started going after more pins. In the second round, he even recorded back-to-back eagles. “Played some nice golf, made a bunch of birdies and felt like, yes, I can still do this,” he said.

CAPTAIN'S LAST WORDS