Smith cashes in at Rich Harvest

By Tim Cronin

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Sunday, September 18, 2022

In the end, Cameron Smith’s victory in the LIV Golf Invitational in Sugar Grove was a matter of execution. When Dustin Johnson could make only pars on the last six holes and Peter Uihlein stumbled after closing to within two strokes, Smith ran in a six-footer for birdie on Rich Harvest Farms’ treacherous par-4 17th and stroked a 20-footer into the cup at the par-5 18th to wow the gallery and win by four strokes.

His total of 13-under-par 203, capped by Sunday’s 4-under 68, matched Branden Grace’s score at Pumpkin Ridge, both in aggregate and against par, for a par-72 layout on the LIV circuit. As records go, it’s modest, but one has to start somewhere.

Smith, on the other hand, is anything but starting. This is his second win in five starts, the other being the 150th Open Championship. The Old Course at St. Andrews and Rich Harvest will never be confused, and nor will the Claret Jug be mixed up with the slivery bauble LIV hands its winners, but $4 million for first is $4 million, plus the $41,666.66 he snagged for the Punch team being part of a three-way for third in the team standings. And Smith’s bomb at the last was the reason why the extra dough is in his account.

“I said to Sam, my caddie, we need to drain this one for the boys,” Smith said. “Yeah, it was nice to get that done because I know it means a lot for those boys, but also the team standings for the end-of-the-year event.”

The team championship may mean nothing to most people, but there will be $50 million up on offer for the top three teams at Doral in Miami at the end of October.

It’s also his third win in his last 14 starts, going back to his victory in the Players Championship. Add up his money on both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf in 2022 – and why not, since LIV is all about the dough – and Smith has won $15,162,063.66. Whether the money won in LIV is on top of the reported $125 million he received for signing or is applied against it like an advance on a book contract is unknown. Either way, the tag day for Mr. Smith has been cancelled.

“I think it was quite frustrating at the start of the day,” Smith said. “My warmup wasn't fantastic. I didn't feel like I was striking the ball as well as I had the first couple of days. I just kind of stuck in there. There was a couple of really poor shots off the tee that led to a couple of really soft bogeys on quite easy holes.”

Well, one bogey, actually, when things were still in doubt. Smith started the day two strokes ahead of Johnson and three up on Uihlein, but the lead was down to a stroke after his bogey on the sixth hole. Back-to-back birdies on the next two holes moved him three ahead of Johnson and four ahead of Uihlein, and from then on, it was catch him if you can.

“I think after that putt went in on 7 and then 8, I started to feel a little bit better about myself and kind of got the round going again,” Smith said.

Nobody could catch him. Johnson, who opened with a course-record 63 on Friday, went out in 1-over 37 with bogeys on the eighth and ninth holes and could do nothing to help his cause after birdies on the 10th and 12th holes.

“I was in a very good spot, just didn't get off to a great start, especially 8 and 9 kind of killed me,” Johnson said. “Especially hitting the fairway on 8, and then 9 I wasn't in a bad spot, just made two really bad bogeys there.”

Patrick Reed threatened for a time and settled for 68 and 5-under 211, but fan favorite Phil Mickelson, whose agitation to straighten out the PGA Tour, and then his exile after inflammatory comments about the LIV-backing Saudis set the new circuit back for a bit, closed with a 6-under 66 for 6-under 210 and a share of eighth place. It’s his best round since a 66 in last year’s WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis, 39 rounds ago.

“I’ll take the momentum and go to Thailand and then go to Doral (where he won on the PGA Tour in 2009),” Mickelson said. He did not mention Saudi Arabia, the tournament in between, where lives crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the deputy prime minister and economic boss – and thus overseer of the Public Investment Fund, which funds the LIV operation – who denies ordering the killing of journalist-critic Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Said Mickelson of Salman and Co. to author Alan Shipnuck, “They’re scary (expletives). … have a horrible record on human rights.” Ir might be a good tournament for Mickelson to skip.

Around Rich Harvest

Johnson’s 4 Aces team, which includes Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez, won the team title, each pocketing an extra $750,000 for the effort. Johnson, aware the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces won the league title on Sunday, said, “I think it's pretty cool because you don't get too teams named Aces that win on a Sunday too often. It came on my phone. I knew it. I was watching it all day.” … The gallery wasn’t announced, but appeared to be the equal of the 18,000 that LIV announced on Saturday. Adding in the 8,000 that Illinois Golfer estimated on Friday, and that’s 44,000 for three days for a tournament on a new and often-maligned series at a course on a two-lane road nearly 60 miles from the Loop. Course owner Jerry Rich and LIV supremo Greg Norman have to be tickled at the interest. It has been three years since a top-tier pro tournament open to the public, in the previous case the 2019 BMW Championship, has been in the Chicago area. … The BMW is at Olympia Fields next August. It was held there in 2020 but fans were barred because of the COVID-19 pandemic.