LIV GOLF TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 30, 2025

Kevin Doyle

Louis Oosthuizen

Cam Smith

The Cardinal at Saint John’s

Press Conference

ARLO WHITE: Good morning, everybody, and welcome. My name is Arlo White. I'm the host and play-by-play commentator for the LIV Golf league. Today isn't just any other press conference. This is your preview to a bold, one-of-a-kind team golf event that's coming to Michigan, you may have heard, August the 22nd to the 24th, which will round out another hugely successful LIV Golf league season.

The 2025 Team Championship is taking over The Cardinal at St. John's where the sun is shining beautifully, I hear, today, and that is of course in Plymouth, and we're here to show you why it's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

To kick things off we've got a special message from LIV Golf CEO Scott O'Neil. Let's have a listen.

SCOTT O'NEIL (via video): Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's been an incredible year for LIV Golf, where thrilling competition, exciting new partnerships and a growing global fan base are inspiring a new era for this beloved sport. This season we've hosted events in nine different countries, traveling across North America, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East to deliver a truly unique event experience that is being embraced around the globe.

As we hit the home stretch, the countdown is on for our debut in the great state of Michigan, where we're set to bring our biggest event of the season, the LIV Golf Team Championship. Michigan is a state that's rich with sports tradition, passion for team competition; doesn't just sit at the core of its sports history, it's engrained in the community and serves as the heartbeat of its culture.

It's an ideal setting for our Team Championship, where match play will take center stage and LIV Golf's 13 teams will battle it out for the season's ultimate prize. For the many fans who will experience LIV Golf for the first time, we can't wait to welcome you to a three-day festival of high-stakes drama, elite competition, world-class concerts and a one-of-a-kind event that is redefining what's possible in golf. It's colorful, it's loud, it's family friendly, but most of all, it's fun, and it's where we'll crown our 2025 team champions and celebrate another monumental season for LIV Golf, a league with its sights set on a bold future ahead. I look forward to seeing you there.

ARLO WHITE: Great to hear from LIV Golf's CEO Scott O'Neil. We are coming off a superb event held at the JCB Country Club just a few miles away from I am here in the Midlands of England, during which it was announced that we will return there in 2026. We will also be back at the Grange in Adelaide in February. That is usually a monumental occasion down in South Australia. And in March, and I know Louis Oosthuizen and the Stingers are excited, we will visit South Africa for the very first time, so that is absolutely awesome news.

Before we dive into what's new this year for the Team Championship, let's get the energy up and give you a feel for what LIV Golf is all about.

(Sizzle video shown.)

It's exciting. It's been a thrill to cover the first four seasons of the LIV Golf league, and that's just an example of the decibel level that you can expect from Michigan at the end of August at the Team Championship.

We've got a fantastic group joining us today. Cam Smith, captain of Ripper GC, the all-Aussie team. They're our defending team champions from 2024. Hello, Cam.

CAM SMITH: Hi, mate.

ARLO WHITE: Louis Oosthuizen, captain of Stinger GC, the all-South African team, proudly wearing the green of South Africa there. Louis, how you doing?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Thanks, and you?

ARLO WHITE: Yeah, very good, thanks, Louis. And Kevin Doyle representing the Pulte Family Foundation. They're here to share how they're preparing for this year's Team Championship and what fans and media alike can expect. Kevin, how you doing?

I've got to talk about what makes this year's Team Championship so electrifying. For 2025 we've raised the stakes a little. The new format has been introduced to the competition which increases the strategy involved, and we get more players out on to the course from start to finish over the course of the weekend.

If you have your notebooks to the ready, this is how the Team Championship is going to work in Michigan at the end of this month.

New this year, so on Wednesday ahead of the Friday start in the main competition, there will be a play-in match where teams seeded 12th and 13th from the regular season standings will face each other in a survive-and-advance head-to-head battle. The loser is eliminated and will not compete in the rest of the tournament. Remember, we have 13 teams of four, so for the main tournament over the weekend there will only be 12 teams competing in that.

Now, Friday, that will be the quarterfinals where we have another new wrinkle this year. The top-seeded teams do not this year gain a first-round bye into the semifinals. So no day off for anybody in the Team Championship this year.

Captains of the top seeds will have the advantage of choosing what team they want to face, so there's still a lot to be gained from finishing as high in the team standings as you possibly can before the end of the regular season. We have two more events to go in Chicago and Indianapolis.

So they can choose which team they want to face, and each team contesting two singles matches and one alternate-shot foursomes match, so basically three points on offer; first to two and you progress.

That means on Friday six head-to-head matchups among the team 12 teams. That ensures that fans will see all 48 players compete in the quarterfinals, so those three points up for grabs. You win two of them and you advance to the semifinals.

Saturday splits into two brackets with everyone still playing. The championship bracket, that's the six teams who are effectively still alive to win the championship. They advanced on Friday. And the rankings bracket for the six teams who lost, it's the rankings bracket as well.

Now, those six will compete for the final rankings positions, so that's the bottom six teams. The top seeds in each bracket pick who they want to play with the same format as Friday. So everyone plays two singles matches, one alternate-shot foursomes match just like Friday, and of course the three winning teams from the semis will advance to the finals.

Now, Sunday, I guess the ultimate test, it's all stroke play. It's just like the regular season. All four scores count for each team. It's produced some electrifying excitement in the previous three championship finals.

The nine teams competing in the rankings bracket will play for top finish in their respective tiers, whilst the remaining top three seeds in the championship bracket battle it out to become team champion, so every swing matters, every golfer out on the golf course, and on Sunday the lowest team score will win.

It's going to be absolutely thrilling over the four days with the play-in competition on Wednesday.

So team golf is coming to life in Michigan. It all starts with an incredible venue. Kevin, I'll come to you first. Tell us what this partnership means to the Pulte Family Foundation and how your mission aligns with LIV's community-driven future.

KEVIN DOYLE: Thank you, Arlo. It's a privilege for us to be hosting this event. I'm also thrilled that Michiganders who Scott mentioned in the video are incredibly passionate sports fans. I'm thrilled that they get to experience a one-of-a-kind championship like this.

Hosting the Team Championship, it's a wonderful opportunity for us, to highlight St. John's resort, to highlight our foundation's charitable mission, which is centered around serving those in need, and much of our work is more traditional charitable giving. But our investments in a few humanitarian hotels like St. John's we feel is a bold and unique way for a nonprofit like ours to have a multiplier impact on the community.

St. John's is a place that 100 percent of the profits go to charity, and simultaneously we do charitable programs like food rescue, employment of people with intellectual disabilities, youth development programs. We do all of that stuff on property.

There's a clear alignment with us and LIV as it relates to taking a bold and unique approach, and there's also a community alignment. When I was first introduced to LIV Golf, their first request was actually not about the resort, it was about the work that we do to support refugees. We've kind of had that conversation going from the very beginning.

But related to the resort, we've spent the last few years doing a massive transformation at St. John's, including building The Cardinal, and the goal is to make it a one-stop shop destination for everyone that comes there. We're incredibly grateful that LIV saw St. John's for exactly what we designed it to be, and they plan to use every inch of our property to create a one-of-a-kind event that will be unlike anything else that's been in the market before and their biggest event of the year.

It's a fantastic opportunity for our team to highlight our mission and how special St. John's is. We're grateful to LIV for the opportunity. We're grateful for Cam and Louis and you and so many others that are going to convene, and we look forward to seeing everyone there in a couple weeks.

ARLO WHITE: We can't wait and we look forward great to hear from you. Let's hear from the captains themselves, two of the most strategic minds in team golf.

I'm going to go to you first, Cam. This whole team ethos in the LIV Golf league, you have taken it so seriously, as has Louis, of course, with the all-South African Stingers, but you gained an identity almost immediately with this idea of Ripper GC and it all being Australian. You won the first team playoff. Sorry, Louis, but it was an incredible event down in Adelaide last year, and ultimately, Cam, you won the Team Championship in Dallas. What are your memories of that final day?

CAM SMITH: I remember it being a good day. It was a great day. Probably first and foremost, the way -- what I remember the most about that week was the way Leish and Herby pulled us through the semifinals for us to get into the finals. We were all three matches down against the Fireballs, and then Leish and Herby in the last five or six holes pulled out some heroics and were able to get a shot at the team title.

That's the biggest thing that steps out, obviously, winning the next day was great, but we wouldn't have been in that position at all if it wasn't for Leish and Herby really pulling through on that Saturday.

It was a great week. It was a really fun week. That's kind of why we play LIV Golf is for the team, and to finish off with a week like that was awesome.

ARLO WHITE: I spoke to Leish before this season started, and he said he watched all the coverage back of that final day, and he still wasn't convinced you had won it until he actually watched it again and saw it again. He had this horrible thing it was going to go wrong and you'd lose by a shot.

How do you assess and go about the strategy of who partners who and who will play who? Does it depend on your opponents?

CAM SMITH: Yes, I think so, entirely, and this year we'll get the advantage as being a top seed of knowing who they're going to pick in the foursomes and in singles, which is another new rule this year.

The biggest thing for us is Jonesy and I play the same ball, and Herby and Leish play a Callaway and TaylorMade, so that's kind of why we matched up last year. You don't really want to change all that stuff, especially a ball. Every ball flight is different in wind and different conditions.

We'll probably look to do much more of the same, I think, this year unless someone goes out and goes crazy the last couple of events here before. We'll keep everything much the same and keep that Aussie spirit high, of course.

ARLO WHITE: Australia against South Africa is always thrilling to watch, whatever the sport might be. Louis, Stinger, you're always in the mix. Congratulations on being awarded that LIV Golf South Africa for next year just outside of Johannesburg. When it comes to team golf, what's your approach to a format where every day and every player and every shot matters?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, thank you. We are very excited going to South Africa. Yeah, especially match play, like Cam was saying, there's a few things you do look at. That's the reason me and Charl last year played together. We play the same ball. Branden and Dean play different golf balls. That's always one thing, especially in alternate shot, that's a massive thing to deal with is the golf ball.

But yeah, look, I'm sure Cam wants to pick us to play against us just to get a little revenge, but no, it's all depending on who you play. I mean, the last year we sort of knew who was going to do the single ones, who was going to do the alternate shot, and you can sort of make a decision on that.

But all four guys need to play well, otherwise you're not going to make it.

ARLO WHITE: Louis, thank you very much for the time. You've now met the captains, so over to you. We can open it up to media for your questions.

Q. Kevin, I actually wanted to ask you, as you get closer, what does this mean visibility-wise, bringing this event to The Cardinal, especially the course being so new?

KEVIN DOYLE: Thanks for the question. I think it means a few things for us. We're able to generate income for our charitable mission and that's a big thing for us. We're able to gain exposure for St. John's resort and for our broader foundation mission and platform. That's equally as important for us to be able to spread that and be able to do some of those pieces of work.

Then directly, we're going to actually be doing charitable programs in partnership with LIV during the tournament. I think all three of those things together make this a great event for us.

As I mentioned kind of at the outset, for St. John's in particular, when we did this transformation, we designed this place to be able to host events like this where it's not just a hotel, it's not just a restaurant, it's not just a golf course. So for LIV to come and pick this place to host a global event like this that's going to have concerts, it's a festival-like atmosphere, as Scott said, I think that will generate a great proof point for others to see what a special place this is.

Q. Cam, I just wondered how you compare winning in individual events to a team event and how fun it is to have some guys to celebrate it with?

CAM SMITH: Yeah, I've been fortunate enough to do both now. Both are really completely different feelings. I think there's probably a lot more anxiety during the day because you are so dependent on other people rather than just yourself, so you're always looking at the leaderboard. You're looking at what the other guys are doing.

But I think when it's all said and done, I guess the drinks afterward do taste a little bit better with a few other of your mates, going out there playing for each other, playing for your team, your caddies, the managers, everything around us. It's a pretty cool experience to do that with a few other guys.

Q. If I could just ask you to reflect on your season, I'm sure you probably didn't get the results in the majors you wanted, and I wonder how that makes you motivated to end the year on a high note in Michigan?

CAM SMITH: Yeah, it's been a bit of a disappointing year individually, particularly in the majors. I've been working hard and not getting results, which isn't really a good feeling. It kind of sucks, to be honest. But like you said, we've got a few more events here. We're in Chicago and Indy before we get to Detroit. The goal is to finish it off strong and keep working hard through those three events and then again in the off-season to have a better one next year.

Q. For both Cam and Louis, with the team champs and having to play against the other team, we referenced the playoff in Adelaide last year. How great would it be, Louis, for you to face the Rippers once again considering that the Springboks will also be playing against Australia later next month?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, I mean, look, we had our chance down in Adelaide on the very first hole, and obviously didn't make one of those putts, and then the next hole they pimped us there.

The Rippers are a strong team. I think to go up against them would be really tough. I'd rather want to do it later in the stages like a final day or something.

But yeah, you need to play well in all these matches. Golf is a funny thing; if it happens on the day and two guys aren't playing well, then you're in real trouble.

CAM SMITH: Yeah, it would be great to play Louis and the rest of the Stinger boys, to be fair. We've got a great rivalry, but we also have a really good friendship. We all get along. We all like to have a laugh after the round. Four really good guys. Like Louis said, I think facing any team, you really have to play well. All four guys have to play well.

It's going to be tough regardless, but if we could play the Stingers, it would be unreal. It would be a good rematch, that's for sure.

Q. For both of the captains, first time with the LIV tournament in Detroit. What do you expect from the crowd here? What kind of reception do you guys expect?

CAM SMITH: Yeah, a good one. I think, like it's been mentioned before, Detroit is known for its sporting atmosphere, so it's a good way to end the year, that's for sure, particularly being a team event.

I'm not sure if the Aussies and South Africans will have as much support as a few of the American teams, but we're looking forward to getting up there and experiencing what Detroit is all about.

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, I think being on U.S. soil, if all the Rippers go up against an American team, it's going to be tough, but yeah, we expect the crowds to be good. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Q. Cam, you mentioned that the season hadn't gone exactly the way you wanted. How do you compartmentalize that? Respectfully, obviously, how do you assess that? What exactly is it? Are you working on things here through this event, or do you put all that aside until the season is over and then have kind of an autopsy in that sense? Is it an ongoing process is maybe the best way to ask that.

CAM SMITH: Yeah, for sure, you're constantly trying to figure stuff out, whether you're playing great or whether you're playing bad. Golf is a funny game like that.

Yeah, it's been difficult, mate. I can't quite really put my finger on it. I feel like my technical stuff is -- particularly with my swing, is as good as it's ever been, and I'm not getting the results from it. It's been difficult in the sense that it feels really good, but I can't go out there and play my best golf.

Working through it mentally. I feel like I've lost a little bit of confidence in my game. But I'm slowly getting that back, and that's through hard work and hitting the right shots on the golf course.

It's just a matter of time, I feel like. I don't think it's a technical issue or anything like that. It's just a little bit of a setback, and we'll be right back up there before we know it.

Q. I have a question for Cam and Louis. The tournament is three weeks out, and there's some downtime before that. Talk about what a sampling of an off day includes, from when you get up in the morning, how many balls you're hitting, or what you're doing on an off week or off day to prepare for this to keep your games sharp?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Well, I'll go first, Cam, because I'm sure Cam is all ready to come practice. When I've got a week off like this week, I won't do much until Friday. I'll do a little bit over the weekend, and then we do have quite a bit of time before next Friday starts in Chicago. To be honest, in the last seven, eight weeks I've been playing six or seven tournaments, so you pretty much played into your game. It's more the off-season is really the hard one where you take quite a bit of time off and then coming back to get it sharp again. But during the season, I think it's important to have a few days or have a little bit of a break and then just get back into it.

But it's a lot easier to do it in the season than off-season.

CAM SMITH: Yeah, like Louis mentioned, we've played a lot of golf the last few months, so this week I've had a couple of days off. I've actually hit some balls already this morning, Louis. I don't know where you were. I couldn't find you on the range --

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: I was on the farm.

CAM SMITH: But I guess an off week typically is a couple days off early in the week and then hitting some balls in the morning and going to play nine holes.

Probably more so than anything else is the chipping and putting. I feel like you can learn a lot about your full swing in those little pitch shots. I spend a lot of time around the green, a lot of time putting, and then go out there and play the golf course.

Q. Just wanted to get your thoughts, Louis and Cam, on not having any byes for the top teams in the quarterfinals. Obviously the first three years each of the champions has always had a bye in that first round. Do you anticipate maybe more volatility on the quarterfinals?

CAM SMITH: Yeah, I think so, for sure. I think you'll see a few teams get knocked out that you maybe wouldn't expect.

Also, we had a bye last year, and I don't really know if it worked into our favor or not. Playing the golf course the day before you go out and play is a big bonus. You get to see how it plays, how it's reacting one last time. So to have a day off while everyone else is playing, like I said, I don't know if it really worked to our advantage.

I feel like we were all playing really good golf and came up against a pretty hot Fireballs after they won in the quarterfinals, and it was a very tough match.

I'm looking forward to playing all three days. I think we want to see the golf course, so yeah.

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Yeah, look, I think if one of those top three teams is knocked out the first day, there's definitely going to be some complaining. They did really well the whole season to be where they are. But like Cam is saying, it is sometimes good to play the golf course quite a few times over.

They're the top team for a reason. They're not all of a sudden just going to play poorly in the one round. Match play is different, but you'll expect them to be a tough team to go through, and they do if they elected to choose the weaker teams to play against. They should be able to get through to the next day.

But yeah, you can definitely expect to feel unhappy captains if they're knocked out the first day.

Q. Kevin, just wondering, how many years is the deal to host the event, and how many people are you preparing to host?

KEVIN DOYLE: The deal right now is for this tournament, so it's a one-year tournament. LIV has a fantastic tournament organizer, Outlyr, and they've done this in a number of different locations around the country, and I think we're planning that it could be 10,000 to 15,000, I don't know what the latest projections are right now, but per day, maybe more. I think our facility can handle that. We've done events 10,000 plus in the past, and Outlyr has certainly managed tournaments like that and LIV has certainly managed tournaments like that.

Q. As a person who's never been to a LIV event before, I've watched a little bit of it on TV, but how is it different than your traditional PGA tournament experience?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: Look, I think it's more -- we've seen at JCB that we were at last week, it feels like you're at a festival. It feels like -- you know, there's a concert, some years more than one concert, and music -- you'll see a lot of younger people there enjoying outside of golf, not just the golf. That's the biggest thing to attract people that doesn't really know a lot about golf and getting them to see the top players play the game and then also enjoy family time at the fan zone and everything else we do outside of golf.

It is different. It's a different experience. The fact that we shotgun start, we're four and a half hours we're off the golf course, so it's not a whole-day thing. If you want to see a couple of players, you can see everyone you want to see in four and a half hours, and I think that makes it very attractive.

Q. There's been reported that the purses are going to expand in 2026 to $30 million for each event. I'm just wondering what you guys' thoughts are on an increase like that.

CAM SMITH: Yeah, I don't know for sure. I think there was a little bit of a talk to increase the team payout per week. Kind of makes a little bit of sense, I guess, business-wise for the teams. We have different managers. We've all got probably between five to ten staff at the moment on most of the teams. As you can imagine, it's probably not cheap to get everyone around and all the rest of it. So I think that was the goal.

I'm not sure if it's approved yet or not. I really don't know. But I think it would be a good thing for the teams business-wise going forward.

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: The same from us. I've heard a little bit about it, but it's on the team side of things, and like Cam was saying, we've got quite a few guys part of the whole team setup, and it makes sense from a business side of things.

Q. To follow that up, there was a discussion a while ago that the focus should be more on the team side than the individual side, but because of contracts and everything else, it was going to be hard to implement, but now you're getting towards the end of your contracts, you have different people in place in the hierarchy at LIV. Do you foresee that as something going forward, A, you'd like to see, and B, you think would happen?

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: I'm 100 percent for it being more team than individual. I think that is how we're going to stand out and how we're going to be different in the future. I do not know if that will happen in the time that I'm still at LIV, but I do feel that the future of LIV is more team than individual.

CAM SMITH: I would second that.

Q. As far as the LIV in particular, is there a certain -- you guys are renewing a lot of tournaments, you're announcing new tournaments. Is there a metric you're using to come back to for the next year? And secondly, how much players, Louis and Cam, do you want to see -- what type of fan engagement? Are you going to really get the crowd going to get behind you? Answer any part you want, anybody.

LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN: I wouldn't know much about how they choose what week to go back to on what events, but obviously for Cam being Australian, we would love to see it in Australia all the time, or yearly. Me the same, now having the first one in South Africa.

And getting the crowd behind you, I think it's -- obviously when you play in the U.S., the U.S. follows a lot more the American players, but you also have fans that really is there for individual players that they've seen before they came to LIV. You try your best to be respectful to the crowd, and hopefully you can get them on your side, and that does make a big difference playing a tournament.

But you have those weeks where they have their teams that they support, and you won't have that much support.

Q. Speaking of the crowds, I was kind of wondering what experience you might have or what have you heard of what Michigan fans are like and what our weather and other factors are like that might attract you or not?

CAM SMITH: Yeah, I've played enough in the States, I guess, to know that -- I guess the further north you go, the rowdier the fans get I think is about right. Expecting a pretty rowdy week. With the concerts and everything, hopefully we get some big crowds, and it should be a fun week.

Like we said before, I think being an Australia-based team and Louis also being a South African team, we might not have the support that we get in Australia or South Africa, but yeah, it should be a fun week nonetheless. Those northern crowds get pretty rowdy. It'll be good.

ARLO WHITE: A great way to kick off the count down to the Team Championship. Cam, Louis, thank you very much indeed for your time. Always great to hear from you. Kevin, thank you, and our partners at the pull at this family foundation. Everybody in the media that's joined, thanks a lot for joining us and for your questions.

In addition to the world-class golf and fan experiences, there will be two world-class concerts at the Team Championship, Saturday afternoon immediately after the play, Grammy Award-winning band Imagine Dragons are going to perform, so that'll be a hot ticket. On Sunday, multi-platinum Grammy Award-nominated Swedish House Mafia will ignite the crowd, and I'm sure Cam will be hoping to do a shoey or two with the LIV Golf trophy, maybe Louis doing likewise perhaps. We'll have to wait and see.

The concerts are all included with the grounds passes and hospitality tickets for those days, so be sure not to miss it.

Fans, you can get tickets at LIVGolf.com. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in.