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GOLF AUSTRALIAN OPEN, Cameron Smith of Australia on the fourth hole green reacts after his putt during the Australian Open Golf tournament at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Thursday, December 4, 2025. NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY MELBOURNE VICTORIA AUSTRALIA PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxAUSxNZLxPNGxFIJxVANxSOLxTGA Copyright: xCONxCHRONISx 20251204174075017051
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GOLF AUSTRALIAN OPEN, Cameron Smith of Australia on the fourth hole green reacts after his putt during the Australian Open Golf tournament at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Thursday, December 4, 2025. NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY MELBOURNE VICTORIA AUSTRALIA PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxAUSxNZLxPNGxFIJxVANxSOLxTGA Copyright: xCONxCHRONISx 20251204174075017051
At the 2022 Open Championship, Cameron Smith shot 64 in the final round to win at St Andrews. He has not contended in a major since. Now, with six straight missed cuts and a $140-150M LIV contract in the background, the debate has come to center on one question among the fans. And it is simple: Is LIV the reason behind it?
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At the 2026 Masters, Smith shot rounds of 74 and 77 to finish seven over, missing the cut by three shots. It extended his run to six consecutive missed cuts in majors. Before joining LIV, he had three consecutive top-10s at Augusta alone. Since then, a T34, a T6, and back-to-back missed cuts have occurred.
The slide has not been sudden. It has been gradual, and the timeline maps closely to his time in the league. Before joining LIV, Smith had three consecutive top-10 finishes at Augusta: a T2 in 2020, a T10 in 2021, and a T3 in 2022. In his first two Masters appearances as a LIV player, he still managed a T34 in 2023 and a T6 in 2024.
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But 2025 marked a turning point, when he missed the cut at Augusta for the first time as a professional, becoming the only player that year to tee it up in all four majors and miss every single one. His 2026 rounds of 74 and 77 made it back-to-back missed cuts at the Masters, part of a wider run of six consecutive missed cuts across all four majors.
Cameron Smith last 6 majors:
MC
MC
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MC pic.twitter.com/rwUDXrsI2i— Underdog Golf (@UnderdogGolf) April 11, 2026
Cameron Smith is not alone in this conversation. Jon Rahm: Since his blockbuster move to LIV, the 2023 Masters champion has failed to add a third major to his trophy case. At the 2026 Masters, Rahm made the cut but sat at four over after rounds of 78 and 70, already 16 shots behind runaway leader Rory McIlroy with the weekend still to play.
That wider LIV struggle at Augusta this year made the case harder to dismiss.
Of the 10 LIV players in the field of 91, five missed the cut. The most striking was Bryson DeChambeau, who was not just a contender on paper. He arrived off back-to-back LIV wins and was the name most analysts had circled as a genuine title threat. He was tracking safely above the cut line until a triple bogey on the 18th on Friday ended his tournament at six over.
Among those who survived, only Tyrrell Hatton, sitting at four under, had any realistic shot at troubling McIlroy. If DeChambeau, the most prepared LIV player for Augusta, missed the weekend, it just strengthens that the league lacks major-level competition.
In fact, golf analyst Brandel Chamblee put it bluntly when addressing LIV golfers: “They’re not being challenged, they’re not being tested, and so they’re not ready.”
Cameron Smith’s LIV stats suggest he is not a player in freefall. He finished T8 in Adelaide and T8 in Singapore and ranks second in scrambling on tour in 2026. The tools are still there. But six straight major missed cuts across two full seasons is a run that goes beyond a bad patch, and fans have noticed.
Fans point to a pattern as LIV struggles grow louder
Smith’s sixth straight missed major cut sparked social media outrage, but fans saw it as a pattern they’d been watching for two years. The comments were direct and mostly in agreement.
“Another guy that would benefit a ton if he went back to competing on the DP World and PGA Tour,” a follower pointed out.
The last time he had a good finish at a major was in 2020, where he was runner-up. However, since making the move, he has not made a major championship weekend in over a year, and Koepka’s exit from LIV before 2026 only adds context to that view.
“The LIV affect,” one fan simply wrote. As several well-known LIV names struggle at Augusta at the same time, the phrase has gained traction, making it seem like a systemic problem rather than just a few golfers having bad days.
“LIV has ruined some great golfers,” said another.
The broader LIV picture at Augusta this year only deepened that narrative. Of the 10 LIV players in the field of 91, five missed the cut.
“What happened to Cam Smith? What it looks like is he took a bag from LIV, doesn’t compete at a high level in the LIV tournaments, and has checked out,” a user commented.
It is a pointed observation, particularly given that Cameron Smith’s LIV numbers, a 69.6 scoring average and top-two in scrambling in 2026, suggest he is not struggling on that circuit. The drop-off specifically at majors is what stands out.
Talking about LIV and money won’t come up? Not possible.
“They’ve said it many times they took the money from LIV and stopped practicing, just show up game day and go out and have fun, no competitive edge in LIV,” read another reaction.
The no-cut format at LIV removes the pressure to survive on Fridays that majors demand. Smith reportedly signed for around $140-150 million in 2022, and for many, that financial security explains the rest
Cameron Smith heads into the rest of the 2026 major season needing answers. Whether those answers are possible without a change in where he competes is a persistent question.
Written by
Edited by
Riya Singhal