How a leaner, mentally sharper Marc Leishman is thriving on LIV Golf, with trophies to prove it.
Marc Leishman had been quietly playing some solid golf on the LIV Golf League since joining in September 2022. Don’t remember his two runner-up results in 2023? Perhaps you weren’t paying close enough attention while some of the league’s bigger names were in fine form, such as Leishman’s Ripper GC teammate, Cameron Smith, who won twice that year – in London and Bedminster – or Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and LIV’s other major winners who were hogging the limelight.
Leishman was building.
In 2024, he again produced two second-place results for the season – at the Doral course for LIV Golf Miami and The Greenbrier in West Virginia. Last September, Leishman played a crucial role in helping Ripper GC to an emphatic, season-long teams championship win.
An individual victory was only a matter of time. This year, Leishman has produced the type of golf the world was used to watching from 2012 to 2022, when he compiled six career PGA Tour wins and a T-2 at the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews.
At LIV Golf Miami this April, Leishman survived strong winds, a star-studded leaderboard and a notoriously difficult layout at Doral’s Blue Monster course to earn his first individual LIV win. Leishman’s final-round 68 came on the second-toughest day for scoring in LIV’s three-year timeline. It began with four birdies in 10 holes before eight gutsy, consecutive pars to win by one. He had to get up-and-down for par from 100 metres on the 18th to seal the victory.
In June, Leishman made it through 36 holes of final qualifying for the US Open, and then hit it to four feet for birdie on the second playoff hole to secure his first major start in almost three years. At Oakmont Country Club, he finished T-38.
On close examination, Leishman has been playing consistently good golf for three years on LIV. But why is he playing great golf in 2025? The short answer is, Warrnambool-raised Leishman has taken three seasons to fine-tune what works for his practice regime, rest and preparation. The luxury of LIV Golf’s extended offseason each October to January – while warmly appreciated by Leishman – took some adjusting to. “Well, we didn’t really get an offseason on the [PGA] Tour,” Leishman tells Australian Golf Digest. “Coming into [the 2023 LIV campaign, after his first LIV offseason], having not played a whole lot of golf for two months was probably not an ideal preparation.
“My play has been a lot better in 2025 because I feel like I’m taking advantage of my strength this year more, which is iron play. Some weeks you have it and some weeks you don’t. The weeks that my iron play is particularly good, I have to really take advantage of that by attacking pins a bit more, taking on more risk. My putting has been solid the past couple of years as well. It was a big goal of mine to win on LIV. Combining my iron play with some aggression has paid off.”
Now, though, Leishman has been able to start the past two seasons strongly, given that Smith, Leishman, Matt Jones and Lucas Herbert took part in two pre-season bootcamps in a bid to hit the ground running in the first tournament. Within the season, Leishman also recognised that the team’s initial efforts to have all four lads playing practice rounds together didn’t always work for an individual sport like golf. “I’m preparing better and I’ve been doing what works for me this year, having a few practice rounds by myself, to help me prepare the best I can, rather than playing every single practice round with all four of us,” Leishman says. “That has actually helped the team because I’ve been playing better.”
Leishman acknowledged that while LIV’s team model is “the most fun I’ve ever had in golf”, the pre-tournament preparation needed some tailoring. “It’s so enjoyable playing every practice round together and putting a few bucks down while we have a [pairs] match,” he says. “They’re great days. But I’ve always been on the lighter side of practising, because I’ve had the same coach for 25 years and [Denis McDade] and I don’t have to work on a whole lot. It’s mostly maintenance of my fundamentals. What I need to do to prepare is different to Jonesy, Herbie and Cam.”
One noticeable improvement in Leishman’s game in 2025 has been his driving, averaging 280 metres on tee shots and 55 percent of fairways. What’s changed technically in his driving? Leishman pointed to his physical condition. “I think my body is a bit better, like the bones, my hips are square, I’m moving well and having that freedom of knowing that I’m playing well,” he says. “I’ve got that confidence where you can really let it go and almost play like a junior and feeling like you don’t have any consequences. Of course, there are, but I feel free and that allows me to even get over bad holes, days and tournaments. For example, when I won in Miami, I had played terribly (T-51) in my last start at LIV Singapore.”
IRON WILL
Leishman’s iron play is an area of his game that was built on fundamentals and simplicity as a junior golfer growing up in Warrnambool and then nurtured while playing pennant for Melbourne’s Commonwealth Golf Club and during his time at the Victorian Institute of Sport. He eschews thinking about technique because his foundations were cemented with coach McDade as Leishman instead is one of the game’s true feel players – especially in approach play. This season on LIV, Leishman ranks 10th among some of the game’s best ball-strikers, such as Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann, hitting 71 percent of greens in regulation.
“I keep my iron play really simple; for every shot that I hit, whether it’s a fade, a straight shot or a draw,” Leishman says. “With my irons, the swing path is always along the line on my feet. So if I’m trying to hit a fade, obviously I’ll aim left, and it’s the same swing, just with an open clubface. For a straight ball, it’s a square stance, a square face and again I’m swinging along the line of my feet. With the draw, I’m just aiming right and playing with a little bit of a closed clubface and swinging along the line of my feet.
“Sometimes I get into a bad habit of not striking the ball with enough of a descending blow, almost trying to sweep it. I play better when I’m staying ‘on top of’ the ball and hitting the ball into the ground. I play well in the wind, because that’s when you have to compress the ball. I grew up doing that in Warrnambool. Doral this year was windy, and I enjoy lowering my trajectory.”
In addition to a sound body and confidence, one of the reasons why Leishman feels he’s improved his driving is because he has maintained a commitment to focusing on acute targets off the tee.
“I let the shot dictate the swing,” Leishman says. “I’m an external thinker. I’ve got to pick a tiny target because if I set up and just look at the entire fairway, I’ll miss the fairway nearly every time. If I get up there and there’s a greenside bunker with a rake on the edge of it [to aim at], I’ll hit the fairway. I have to pick a really small target. Like a sniper, it’s aim small, miss small. From there, I visualise the shape I need whether that’s a low fade or a high draw.”
If there’s an example of Leishman the feel player, it’s when he’s faced with a tough shot. “If I’ve got a perfect distance with a pitching wedge from the middle of the fairway with no wind, a lot of the time I will hit a good shot, but if I’m in the trees with a gap, and I’ve got to hit a 10-metre fade over water, I’ll probably hit a better shot more often than I would from the middle of the fairway. It’s when you’ve really got to focus, visualise the shot and then shape it. That’s what I’m good at and enjoy.”
Leishman is now 41 and, along with wife Audrey, is a father of three children based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He points out that his off-course happiness is contributing equally to his technical improvements.
“It’s a lot easier to be successful on the course when things are good off the course,” Leishman says. “That sense of wellbeing off the course has been pivotal. All my kids are happy. They’ve all found their hobbies that they love, which, as a dad, is pretty cool. My oldest boy, Harvey, loves basketball and golf, and then my younger boy, Ollie, he loves his guitar. He’s into his music. My daughter, Eva, got into horse riding. They’re all happy. My wife’s happy. I’m very happy travelling with Ripper GC – some of my best mates in the world. We eat together often and bond as a team. I look forward to getting on the road to tournaments, and I really look forward to going home. That’s the ideal mix.”
Leishman has shed a few kilograms and his leaner, 190-centimetre frame looks more like a ruckman for his beloved Richmond Tigers in the AFL than a professional golfer. While he has not embarked on an aggressive fitness program, he is balancing a light gym program with more mindful living. “These days I’m making better decisions,” he says. “I’m still enjoying a beer and I love my food, but I’m making sure I order a leaner steak and instead of getting chips I’m ordering green vegetables. I still have to fuel my body, but I’m being smarter. I still love my chicken wings, every now and again. I’m certainly not missing out on wings! I’m certainly not ready to play in the AFL, but I feel like I’m in pretty good condition for me.”
His workouts are less structured, and his general lifestyle is more active. “I’m always outside, especially in summer, sweating, and I’m very active playing sport with my kids.” That balance has Leishman enjoying social golf more in the past two years than he has in the past decade.
“Golf felt like a job for a long time, and I played very little social golf from 2013 until 2023,” he says. “For 10 years, I played maybe 30 rounds of social golf, but I’ve probably played 20 rounds of social golf this year alone, maybe more. I’m playing a lot more golf and enjoying it. [With LIV Golf’s 14-tournament schedule plus majors and other commitments], I’m on the road about 18 weeks a year compared to 30 [on the PGA Tour]. That’s a lot of extra time with the kids, and you don’t feel guilty leaving the house to play social golf when you’re home more often. Now that my oldest boy is playing golf, I’m enjoying it more than I probably ever have.”
Feature photograph by chris hyde/getty images
