[Photo: Getty images]

Marc Leishman has never been happier. And not just because he’s home in Australia competing for his first big domestic trophy at this week’s Australian PGA and next week’s Open in Melbourne.

It’s because Leishman, whose career includes six wins on the PGA Tour winner and a T-2 at the 2015 Open Championship, had the year of a lifetime playing on LIV Golf with the Ripper GC team. The all-Australian quartet of Leishman, skipper Cameron Smith, Lucas Herbert and Matt Jones won LIV Golf Adelaide in April and then the season-long teams championship in September.

“Off the golf course, (2024) was probably, I would say, the happiest I’ve ever been and probably the best year of my life,” Leishman said. “Combined with the golf, it was a really good year. We had some memorable nights out and just made great memories all around.”

Leishman says he’ll always have love for the PGA Tour, where he enjoyed a breakout season in 2017 and 2018, winning three times in that span before holding off Tiger Woods and others at the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. He played on four Presidents Cup teams before joining LIV with Smith in 2022.

But travelling with a team is different gravy. Leishman said every time he heads to the airport in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he and his family are based, it feels “like I’m going on a boys’ golf trip with mates”.

“It’s very rare in golf that you get to actually celebrate with other people when you win that are equally as happy as you are,” Leishman said. “That’s the cool thing about what we get to do now when we win as a team. There’s eight or 10 guys (including caddies) that are all over the moon and we certainly celebrated accordingly.”

Leishman, whose LIV league does not offer Official World Golf Ranking points, is back in Australia to close out 2024 with his first two official, 72-hole events of the year at Royal Queensland this week and at Open co-hosts Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Club next week. Despite his successes abroad, the 41-year-old star has never lifted the Joe Kirkwood or Stonehaven cups.

He wants to change that, starting at the Australian PGA where three-time winner Smith, defending champion Min Woo Lee and Herbert are among the marquee names in the field.

If the Warrnambool native were to win the Australian PGA or Open, it would be a bonus to 2024.

“Another box I would like to tick is to win an event on LIV individually as well as an Australian PGA or an Australian Open,” Leishman said. “I’m so excited to be back at Royal Queensland again. I love playing here. Normally there’s a bit of wind, and growing up in Warrnambool, I enjoy playing in that.

“The course is good in that it does reward good shots. You can go low if you’re playing well, but if the game’s a bit off, it punishes you. That’s the sign of a good golf course, that there’s a big dispersion in scores, and this is definitely one of those courses. I had a good finish last year and I’m hoping to go a couple better this year and try to leave with some silverware.”