2025 LIV Golf Season Preview: Ripper GC

The 2025 LIV Golf League season starts Feb. 6 in Riyadh. Here’s a quick look at Cameron Smith’s all-Australian – and defending LIV Golf champions – Ripper GC.

OVERVIEW

Lineup

• Cameron Smith (Captain), Australia
• Lucas Herbert, Australia
• Matt Jones, Australia
• Marc Leishman, Australia

Who’s New? No one. These four had a wildly successful first season together after Herbert joined the team prior to 2024. Jones was re-signed in mid-January to keep the roster intact.

The Offseason: The big news was Cam Smith’s Summer Down Under in which he made four consecutive starts in Australia, giving his numerous fans plenty of opportunity to cheer him on. The goodwill tour netted him three top-3 finishes, but his teammate Herbert got the bragging rights by winning the NSW Open … Leishman turned 41 on Oct. 24 and Herbert turned 29 on Dec. 5.

Going to be a good year if … they repeat 2024. Simple as that.

ALL-TIME RESULTS

Trophies Won

TEAM (4)
2023 Bedminster
2024 Adelaide
2024 Singapore
2024 Dallas Team Championship

INDIVIDUAL (3)
2022 Chicago – Smith
2023 London – Smith
2023 Bedminster – Smith

ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Big-game success – They won their biggest regular-season event in Adelaide, and LIV Golf’s biggest team prize in Dallas.

Team room – The Aussies may be having more fun than any other LIV Golf team; of course, it helps when they’re winning.

Short is sweet – No surprise with a team captained by Cam Smith, the Rippers led the league in putting (and also third in scrambling).

OPPORTUNITIES

Off the tee – They ranked 12th in fairways hit and 10th in driving distance (and also throw in 11th in GIR).

Cam’s drought – Hard to believe he went a full calendar year without a win. Doubt he repeats that in 2025.

Slow out of the gate – The Rippers can’t afford to play their way into form like they did last year (see note below)

WORTH NOTING

PREPPING FOR ADELAIDE. The first two versions of LIV Golf Adelaide were played in the back half of April, but the tournament has been moved up to February in 2025 as this season’s second event, played immediately after the opener in Riyadh. Knowing how much they want to successfully defend their title in what promises to be another blockbuster event in their home country, the Rippers are making a concerted effort to get out of the gate quickly this season.

“The talk of our team since we finished has been all about preparing for Adelaide,” said captain Cam Smith. “We’ve typically had three or four events before Adelaide and had a little bit of time to get into the speed of things. This year we don’t. It’s by far our more important of the year. So, we need to be ready.”

The Rippers finished out of the points in three of their first five tournaments in 2024 before winning LIV Golf’s first-ever playoff in Adelaide (beating the Stingers) and following that up the next week by winning in Singapore. “We came in, I’d say, sluggish or underprepared to start the year last year,” Matt Jones said. “We want to get off to a better start and be ready to really go in Adelaide.”

Added Lucas Herbert: “Our weakness is probably our ability to come off longer breaks. It just takes a while to sort of get the wheels spinning for us. That was evident last year.”

The team held a sort of pre-season training camp in January in Florida to get in some practice time together and get the competitive juices flowing. Marc Leishman, who lives in Virginia, was happy to train in warmer conditions. “It’s been a while since we’ve played, so I think we’ll be better prepared for the first few events this year compared to last year,” he said. “Adelaide is definitely extra motivation to do that.”

DEPTH CHARGE. Lucas Herbert said one of the team’s goals in 2025 was to finish the regular season as the No. 1 overall seed going into the Team Championship in Michigan. A year ago, the Rippers won the title as the No. 3 seed. “I think personally our worst player is better than every other team’s worst player,” Herbert said. “We’ve got the depth on our team to be able to do that. I’m really looking forward to hopefully getting the boys motivated and produce the same result as last year but do it a little bit differently.”

DALLAS REPLAY. Leishman said he watched a replay of the Rippers’ performance to win the Team Championship in Dallas. “That was good,” he said. “But knowing the outcome, I was still sitting there nervous.”

CAPTAIN'S LAST WORD