With the fifth season starting in a month, LIV Golf has reportedly done just that agreed to add two players on his schedule.
Tom Kershaw of The Times reported Tuesday that Thomas Detry and Elvis Smylie will join the breakaway league.
Detry is the 57th golfer in the official World Golf Rankings and won the Waste Management Phoenix Open last year by a wide margin.
“It’s unbelievable,” Detry said after the victory at TPC Scottsdale, his first on the PGA Tour. “This is what dreams are made of. That last walk on the last hole was incredible. Everything happens so fast that you don’t really have time to enjoy it – luckily my caddy was there to tell me to enjoy the moment. It’s pretty special.”
Less than 12 months later, Detry will reportedly join LIV in the Saudi-backed league’s highest-ranked signing since the addition of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton in 2024. According to Kershaw, Detry will join the 4Aces alongside Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Thomas Pieters, while Harold Varner III will move to Smash GC.
Smylie is a 23-year-old Australian whose biggest win to date came at the 2024 BMW Australian PGA Championship; he would be a logical choice to join Ripper GC’s Australian team, which parted ways with Matt Jones after last season. Jones will be in the field this week during the LIV Promotions Event.
The reported signings of Detry and Smylie come at the end of a difficult season for LIV, which saw the league lose Brooks Koepka, who left the competition to spend “more time” with his family.
Koepka’s departure and the uncertainty surrounding his potential return to the PGA Tour have raised a number of unanswerable questions about the future of LIV and the fractured state of professional golf.
Rory McIlroy said if it were up to him, he would welcome Koepka back to the PGA Tour if the five-time major champion so wishes. But McIlroy also acknowledged that the decision is more complex than that.
“Does it make sense for Brooks to want to play the PGA Tour again and get him back as soon as possible? Absolutely,” says McIlroy told The Palm Beach Post on Friday after his Boston Common Golf team won their TGL match against Los Angeles Golf Club. “What Brooks has done in golf, it would be good for everyone to have him back.
“It’s hard (because) you can’t treat one person differently than others,” McIlroy said. “And as much as the Tour would like to treat Brooks differently, it sets a legal precedent, because of the lawsuits going on and everything else behind the scenes. He’s still exempt on the Tour because of his big wins. That’s not the hurdle. The hurdle is how they’ve treated others who have tried to come back, serve suspensions, or whatever. That’s the hard part.”
Brooks Koepka-LIV Golf Shocker: He’s leaving. What now?
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Dylan Dethier
Koepka’s decision to leave LIV also put Bryson DeChambeau’s contract extension under scrutiny.
The two-time US Open champion has said he wants to re-sign with LIV, but it is clear he understands he now has more influence than ever following Koepka’s departure.
“It’s a scenario that’s very unique,” DeChambeau told Flushing it. “With Brooks leaving, it certainly brings some unique things. And look, I mean, like I’ve said all along, I want to do this, I want to grow team golf around the world. But it has to be right. And there’s a lot of things that have to be done for it to be right, you know?
“Things have to change. Things have to improve. And I think they have.” [CEO Scott O’Neil] has done fantastic in the year he has had. And I think this year is going to be even better now that he has the right people, and he can run the organization the way he wants to do here. So it will be interesting to see, especially with the new branding coming. It will be interesting to see what happens. I’m not driving this thing at all. To be honest, I don’t have much to say. That’s funny, but it is what it is, right? And you know, sometimes I wish I had more of a say, but that’s life and I don’t run the organization and I trust them to do that.”
This season, LIV has also made the move to 72 holes and added a new spot in the competition in an effort to earn Official World Golf Rankings points.
LIV still has a number of spots to fill in the 57-man competition. There are three spots up for grabs during this week’s Promotional Event. The breakaway league added Laurie Canter this offseason. Canter, who played on LIV when it first came on the scene, earned his PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour this year but opted to return to the Saudi-backed competition instead. Scott Vincent and Yosuke Asaji earned spots by finishing in the top two in the Asian Tour-based International Series season standings. Victor Perez also competed in Cleeks’ rankings this season.
The next season starts from February 4 to 7 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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