Luring 23-year-old Elvis Smylie into the all-Australian Ripper GC line-up continues a growing trend towards youth on LIV Golf.
When Elvis Smylie spent a week practising with Cameron Smith at his Florida home seven years ago, little did he know it would be the start of a career-defining partnership. Smylie has been revealed as the newest team member of Smith’s Ripper GC franchise as the all-Australian line-up pursues a second LIV Golf Team Championship.
Smylie replaces Sydney’s Matt Jones, who finished 40th on the 2025 LIV Golf Standings and thereby dropped into the ‘Open Zone’ – players in positions 25-48 that face potential trade or release from their team.
The announcement of Smylie joining Ripper GC was a surprise. Min Woo Lee was thought to be a possible addition to the squad. However, 2025 Houston Open winner Lee now has direct access into all the PGA Tour’s signature events (with $US20 million purses) as well as being a star of TGL, the indoor-simulator league formed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
It’s been a whirlwind 16 months for Smylie, who is now in the stable of Excel Sports Management, the agency for Tiger Woods. He won his maiden professional title at the WA Open in October 2024. Smylie then rose to prominence five weeks later at the BMW Australian PGA Championship when he out-duelled Cam Smith and Marc Leishman around Royal Queensland in their final-round grouping with a bogey-free 67 to claim the Joe Kirkwood Cup. By season’s end he had won the 2024-2025 Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit.
Smylie is now the youngest member of Ripper GC at 23 years of age. Veteran Leishman is 42, captain Smith is 32 and Lucas Herbert recently turned 30. Smylie lowers the average age of Ripper GC to 31.75 from 36.25 a year ago. (Former Ripper Matt Jones is 45.)
Once seen as a haven for former major champions, LIV Golf is becoming the tour of choice for some of the game’s most exciting new talent. Two other LIV franchises have chosen to restock with gifted players in their early 20s. Fireballs GC is brimming with confidence after dedicating 75 percent of its roster to youth: Captain Sergio Garcia (45) is surrounded by fellow Spaniards Josele Ballester (22), Luis Masaveu (23) and David Puig (24), the recent Australian PGA champion. Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII has two of LIV’s youngest players in American Caleb Surratt (21) and Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin (23). Alongside Rahm (31) and Tyrrell Hatton (34), they propelled Legion XIII to victory at the 2025 Team Championship in Michigan.
The arrival of Smylie can transform Ripper GC into a title contender, according to Nick Adams, Ripper GC’s general manager: “Cam’s vision has always been to provide a pathway for young Australian golfers to excel on the global stage. Elvis represents the best of all the young crop of players currently in Australia and we believe with his playing ability, it gives us the best chance of success in 2026 as a team. We are incredibly excited to have him as part of the group and we look forward to helping him in his golf journey to become an elite player.”
That journey is motoring along. Smylie had reached a career-best 127th on the Official World Golf Ranking at the time of his move to Ripper GC. The highlight of his 2025 rookie season in Europe as a DP World Tour member was a runner-up placing at the French Open. That tie for second near Paris was one of four top-10 results in 25 tournament appearances. Smylie was the only Australian to reach the European circuit’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship. He finished 23rd on the final Race to Dubai ranking where the top 25 players received an exemption into the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
Smylie appeared at ease in the spotlight at home. He tied for 19th in defence of his BMW Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland and shared the first-round lead of the Crown Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, before fading to a tie for eighth.
BIG DECISIONS ABOUT PLAYING FUTURE
Smylie’s switch to LIV Golf comes at an intriguing time. Professional golf is seemingly at an impasse and speculation continues about an end to the civil war between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.
On the eve of the Australian PGA Championship in late November, Smylie gave no indication he was about to leave the DP World Tour. He spoke about making a lot of friendships on the circuit with other Aussies, Kiwis, English and South Africans and “looking forward to hanging out with those guys again”. He was excited about the prospect of playing in his fourth major and third Open Championship at Birkdale and to “do as well as I can on tour”.
But the opportunity to play alongside a childhood hero appears to be an offer too good to refuse. As a 17-year-old amateur in 2019, Smylie was the recipient of the Cam Smith Scholarship that provides two Australians with an all-expenses-paid trip to spend a week with the Queenslander at his home in Jacksonville, Florida. Smylie was able to see how the future Open champion practises and prepares for tournaments.
The experience clearly left an indelible impression upon Smylie, who plays practice rounds with Smith whenever they can. It’s worth noting that Elvis’ mother, former tennis Grand Slam doubles champion Liz Smylie, benefitted from being mentored by Evonne Goolagong Cawley, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion.
Smylie has shown in the past he’s not afraid to make big decisions about his playing career. In 2021, he turned professional at the tender age of 19. That decision came during the onset of COVID when professional golf came to a standstill. Border closures curtailed international travel while the Australian Open was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. Hardly ideal to embark on a pro career.
Smylie missed his first 11 cuts on the DP World Tour while playing on sponsor exemptions. And prior to 2025, he had made just two cuts anywhere in the world apart from Australia and New Zealand.
Smylie has since conceded he was too young to turn pro. But he has doesn’t rue that decision, telling Australian Golf Digest: “I think it’s been a blessing in disguise, though. The tough moments that I’ve had in Europe when I was a pro early on has almost shaped me into the golfer that I am today. I don’t have any regrets with it.”
In 2023 when he returned home to deal with a worsening back injury, Smylie made the bold decision to switch coaches. He left his childhood mentor, Brisbane-based Ian Triggs, to work with Perth-based supercoach Ritchie Smith, renowned for his association with Minjee Lee, Min Woo Lee and Hannah Green. Smylie has embraced a strength-based training regime implemented by Smith and he’s now played a year-long schedule for the first time in his professional career.
Hence the switch to the all-Australian Ripper GC may well have been the least difficult of the big decisions Smylie’s had to make. It stands to reason he will soak up every morsel provided by his illustrious teammates. He’ll likely learn a trick or two about the short game from Smith, playing in the wind from Leishman and putting prowess from Herbert.
Furthermore, the companionship of three Australian teammates should diminish the loneliness associated with tour life. The LIV Golf fraternity is also likely to help Smylie, whom coach Smith has described as “a bit of a homebody”.
The shorter, 14-tournament LIV Golf schedule may also suit Smylie’s development. He will be able to add events on the Asian Tour if he remains injury-free. And LIV’s transition from 54 to 72 holes is another step towards gaining Official World Golf Ranking points.
And the benefits aren’t just a one-way transaction. Smylie and LIV’s talented twenty-somethings offer the vitality of youth that can offset the negativity in the wake of Brooks Koepka’s bombshell departure.
The addition of Elvis Smylie to Ripper GC is another step in the evolution of LIV Golf that has upturned the perception of professional golf around the world.
Photographs by getty images/Ross kinnaird, PATRICK HAMILTON, Andy Cheung, Francois Nel
