£142m LIV Golf stars make feelings clear on PGA Tour merger as five-word comment made

LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have been in talks over ending golf's civil war - but not all top players want the sport to change as they enjoy their current schedule

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf may be discussing a possible merger, but not every pro is keen on bridging the sport's divide.

It's been roughly 18 months since reports of a whopping $1.2billion merger first emerged, with gradual updates hinting at golf's civil war nearing an end. In June 2022, the PGA was stunned as top names defected to the Saudi-backed breakaway league.

The likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau jumped ship for staggering paydays with LIV despite risking their place at future majors. Among those who joined LIV that year were Australian pair Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith, fresh from his triumph at The Open.

While fans might be eager for a truce between the rival tours, Leishman is quite content with LIV's more laid-back calendar. A vital member of the victorious Ripper GC team, the 41-year-old claims the tour has given him one of the 'best year of my life'.

"The fields are just so good every week. You're playing against some really good players and it's hard to win out there. Obviously, that's a box I'd like to tick, to win on LIV individually," Leishman admitted on Tuesday before the Australian PGA Championship. "I've put it down as a pretty good year on the golf course and off the golf course, it's probably the happiest I've ever been.

"It's been the best year of my life. Getting to spend so much time with my kids, they came to a few tournaments and those that they came to I played really well. Travelling around with seven or eight of us, eating out for dinner and having fun every night, I've really enjoyed that about it.

"Playing some good golf and winning as a team - it's very rare in golf that you get to actually celebrate with other people when you win who are equally as happy as you are, and that's the cool thing about what we get to do now. We've had some memorable nights out and made some great memories all-round."

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Australian duo Leishman and Smith joined LIV for a reported combined figure of £142millon ($180m) and have earned £14m and £38m, respectively, on the course. Their winnings were boosted by Ripper GC winning the team championship in Dallas, where they are joined by fellow Aussies Lucas Herbert and Matt Jones.

One negative of being a LIV golfer is the lack of ranked events, with Leishman sitting 914th in the world, having not played in a major since 2022. Smith is 128th and warmed up for the Australian PGA with a second-place finish at the NSW Open and a tie for third at the Queensland PGA, where the Ripper team captain proved his loyalty to LIV by scouting for new talent.

"For me, being a franchise owner, it's something that you look at, young guys coming through," Smith explained. "It's been really cool to see because we don't get to see that very often and being so far away all the time, sometimes you don't even really get to look at the scores. It's been cool to play with them, see how they compete and get a few ideas in the head."