LIV Golf Orlando: Why the DJ and Cam Show is due a repeat as Masters looms
If LIV Golf’s debut season raised any concerns that the rebel circuit would quickly become dominated by its biggest names, such as Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith, then they have knocked into the thick rough for now.
Johnson, whose signing is thought to have cost Saudi-bankrolled LIV Golf more than $100m, topped the individual standings and led his colleagues to victory in the team championship last year, while Smith won the Chicago leg on only his second start in the 2022 series.
So far this year, however, neither player has threatened to dominate. In the two tournaments in LIV Golf’s new league format, Johnson has finished 37th and 13th in the 48-man field. Smith has fared only slightly better at sixth and 16th.
While this is good news for those who were worried that the LIV Golf League was going to turn into The Cam and DJ Show week in, week out, it is bad news for those who were actually quite excited by that prospect.
Of more topical importance is that it means neither player has shown much in the way of form as thoughts begin to turn to the first major of the year next week at Augusta National.
Johnson’s two starts in the LIV Golf League, in Mayakoba and Tucson, have been his only competitive outings of 2023. Prior to that, the two-time major winner last teed it up in anger at LIV’s 2022 season finale five months ago.
Smith, meanwhile, did at least play February’s Saudi Invitational in addition to the LIV Golf schedule, although he failed to make the cut. The world No5 also signed off last year with two events in his native Australia, winning one.
Which is all to say that Johnson and Smith could both do with blowing off some cobwebs in their last opportunity before the Masters, this week’s LIV Golf Orlando at Orange County National.
Each has reason to think that Crooked Cat, a course billed as being links-like, could present a favourable setting. The crowning achievement of Smith’s career came last year at St Andrews, while Johnson is a two-time winner earlier in his career at Pebble Beach.
And they are not the only members of the breakaway tour who would benefit from a strong display before they head to Georgia.
Only three of the 16 other LIV Golf players who are due to play the Masters have recorded a top-10 finish on the tour this year: Kevin Na, Mito Pereira and 2017 Green Jacket winner Sergio Garcia.
Fellow former Masters champions Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Charl Schwartzel have just one top-20 finish between them on this year’s LIV Golf circuit, which has been dominated by Charles Howell III.
Contrast that with the three men made joint Masters favourites by bookmakers, defending champion Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy, together responsible for six wins already this year, and the scale of the task is brought into sharp focus.
In the state of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, it’s high time Cam and DJ revived another celebrated double act.