\n
\nAUGUSTA, Georgia: Cameron Smith returned to the Masters on Monday with a small measure of trepidation, an unusual feeling for someone who has contended two of the last three years and who refers to Augusta National as his \u201chappy place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nSmith is with LIV Golf, the last big name to defect to the Saudi-backed tour. And having heard so much noise and sensed so much acrimony, he didn\u2019t know what kind of reception he would receive when he walked onto the range.<\/p>\n
\nTo his relief, it was the usual dose of hugs and handshakes.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAnd it was nice,\u201d Smith said to the largest gathering of the day in the interview room.<\/p>\n
\nThe British Open champion was the only LIV golfer on the interview schedule, a courtesy Augusta National affords all the reigning major champions regardless of where they play.<\/p>\n
\nWhat was he expecting?<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t really sure, to be honest,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI was just kind of letting it all happen naturally \u2014 went out to the range and did my stuff and yeah, it was just a really nice experience. … I think there\u2019s a lot of stuff going on at the moment that doesn\u2019t need to be going on, especially in the media. I think it\u2019s definitely wound up a little bit too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThis Masters has a full plate of activity, and LIV Golf would appear to be the main course.<\/p>\n
\nSmith has not competed against the best of the PGA Tour since the Tour Championship last August. For the likes of Dustin Johnson, it\u2019s been a little longer.<\/p>\n
\nIt didn\u2019t take long for the mix of players from two tours to cause a stir. The practice round tee sheet listed a most tantalizing foursome of Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Tom Kim and Bryson DeChambeau, who complained only last week that Woods had cut him off ever since the former US Open champion went to LIV.<\/p>\n
\nTurns out it was a Masters mix-up. The fourth was Rory McIlroy, the loudest PGA Tour supporter over the last year.<\/p>\n
\nCouples has made his thoughts clear, recently saying at a PGA Tour Champions breakfast that Phil Mickelson was a \u201cnut bag\u201d and Sergio Garcia a \u201cclown.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nCouples, the 1992 Masters champion and still immensely popular, says he has no personal beef with either and would have no trouble sitting with them at the Masters Club dinner on Tuesday night or playing in the same group.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI have no problem with any of them,\u201d Couples said. \u201cJust please do not bash a tour that I have 43 years invested in. It bothers the hell out of me. They don\u2019t bother me. They really don\u2019t. They\u2019re golfers. I\u2019m a golfer. I respect them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe Masters typically releases tee times on Tuesday afternoon, and that has become an event to see which LIV players \u2014 18 of them are at the Masters \u2014 will be in the same group as PGA Tour loyalists.<\/p>\n
\nShane Lowry played with two LIV golfers \u2014 Mickelson and Louis Oosthuizen \u2014 at the US Open last summer. Adam Scott played with Johnson and Marc Leishman at St. Andrews.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLook, obviously there\u2019s going to be some pairings that are going to be interesting this week,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cI always say this about professional golfers. We all work in the same office. If you work in the same office, you\u2019re not going to like everyone in there. Same way as this. I met Dustin on the range \u2014 I always get on well with Dustin. It was good to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to hype,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re paired with whoever, you don\u2019t really care about what they\u2019re doing. You\u2019re just trying to win the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOne question about LIV golfers is how much they\u2019re playing, as the new circuit has had only three events in 2023. Smith played five times going into the Masters last year, and he briefly challenged Scottie Scheffler until the Texan pulled away to win his first major.<\/p>\n
\nThis year he has played four times \u2014 the only 72-hole event was the Saudi International on the Asian Tour, where he missed the cut. That was followed by three 54-hole LIV events, the last two finishing out of the top 20.<\/p>\n
\nSmith is not in peak form, which he attributes to a long break at home in Australia during the offseason. But Augusta National tends to bring out the best in him, and he\u2019s hoping the good vibes will lead to a great performance.<\/p>\n
\nIf not him, then Smith would love to see another LIV player with a shot at the green jacket.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s just important for LIV guys to be up there because I think we need to be up there,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of chatter about these guys don\u2019t play real golf, these guys don\u2019t play real golf courses. For sure, I\u2019ll be the first one to say, the fields aren\u2019t as strong. I\u2019m the first one to say that.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBut we\u2019ve still got a lot of guys up there that can play some really serious golf, and we compete against each other hard week-in and week-out and we\u2019re trying to do the same things that we did six months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBrooks Koepka is coming off a one-shot victory last week in LIV Golf-Orlando, where the greens were crusty and brown and fast. It was played on the Crooked Cat course at Orange County National, where the PGA Tour used to stage Q-school.<\/p>\n
\nJohnson was asked about any similarities between Crooked Cat and Augusta National.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you could have those in the same sentence, other than I played there last week and I\u2019m playing here this week,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUGUSTA, Georgia: Cameron Smith returned to the Masters on Monday with a small measure of trepidation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sport"],"yoast_head":"\n
5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters - Gulf Times | News by the minute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gulf News| UAE's Largest News aggregator site\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gulf Times | News by the minute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-04T07:04:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/gulftimesuae-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"452\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"111\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gulftimes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Gulftimesuae\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Gulftimesuae\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"gulftimes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters - Gulf Times | News by the minute","description":"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters","og_description":"Gulf News| UAE's Largest News aggregator site","og_url":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf","og_site_name":"Gulf Times | News by the minute","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786","article_published_time":"2023-04-04T07:04:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":452,"height":111,"url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/gulftimesuae-logo.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"gulftimes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Gulftimesuae","twitter_site":"@Gulftimesuae","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"gulftimes","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=16815"},"author":{"name":"gulftimes","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5b0f90aae48bb43165ee6e39ddc977"},"headline":"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters","datePublished":"2023-04-04T07:04:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=16815"},"wordCount":987,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Sport"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=16815","url":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf","name":"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters - Gulf Times | News by the minute","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-04-04T07:04:49+00:00","description":"Gulf Times: Latest news across the GCC from UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/2280956\/golf#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"5 things to look out for at the 2023 Masters"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#website","url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/","name":"Gulf Times | News by the minute","description":"Largest News Aggregator in the Gulf","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization"},"alternateName":"Gulf News Aggregator","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#organization","name":"Gulf Times","url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"","contentUrl":"","caption":"Gulf Times"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100084981843786","https:\/\/x.com\/Gulftimesuae"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5b0f90aae48bb43165ee6e39ddc977","name":"gulftimes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a8f9c2e07a9cd7e7e7c302c8c7ce8d5e0865a0bbcc732793d6e761588fd10b03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"gulftimes"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/gulftimes.ae"],"url":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}