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An Australian achievement: Ripper GC wins first Texas-based LIV Golf team championship

An Australian achievement: Ripper GC wins first Texas-based LIV Golf team championship

CARROLLTON — Maybe the heat provided a Down Under-esque home-course advantage.

Ripper GC — an all-Australian foursome consisting of Cameron Smith, Lucas Herbert, Marc Leishman and Matt Jones — won the LIV Golf Dallas Team Championship on Sunday at Maridoe Golf Club in the upstart tour’s first trip to North Texas.

“I’ve always loved coming to Texas,” said Smith, who shot a team-best 4-under-par. “I think it’s a great spot. The golf course this week was very much like home. It played a lot like home.”

Ripper GC won the team format stroke-play final round with a cumulative score of 11-under and topped the second-place Aces GC (-8) and the third-place Iron Heads GC (-8). Smith sank the clinching putt on the 18th green to secure $14 million in prize money — 60% of which goes to the team and 10% goes to each individual golfer — for a group that entered the weekend third in the season-long standings. Each of the 13 teams that competed won some level of prize money, from $8 million (second place) to $600,000 (last place).

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The top three teams — Crushers GC, Legion XIII and Ripper GC — were granted first-round byes and did not compete in Friday’s match play quarterfinals. Ripper GC beat Fireballs GC 2-1 in Saturday’s team format match play semifinals to advance as one of four contenders for Sunday’s championship.

Maridoe Golf Club, which is owned by Dallas billionaire Albert Huddleston and opened in 2017, drew positive reviews.

“I think it was a great venue for the team championship,” Herbert said. “Some really good pins there for the match play over the first two days. … Like Cam said, really enjoyed coming to Texas. I feel like Leish and I would have felt at home with a very dry heat and quite windy, so we really enjoyed it, and obviously sitting up here celebrating is probably proof of that.”

Said Smith, on the television broadcast after his final putt. “We’re in Dallas, Texas, at the moment, and the amount of Ripper hats I see around is pretty cool.”

Now, about the final-day atmosphere itself: It’s a tad different from The CJ Cup Byron Nelson in McKinney. The victors drenched each other in champagne on the 18th green after Smith’s putt. They then migrated to a nearby concert stage where LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman welcomed the tournament’s top three finishers and presented Ripper GC with a trophy. Pyrotechnics lit off while each foursome walked out. The Iron Heads kicked off another champagne shower while streamers popped. A Martin Garrix concert followed.

Ripper GC — which was brought into the media center for a post-tournament news conference soon after the trophy presentation — was asked “on a scale from one to blacking out and waking up in a McDonald’s parking lot, how drunk are you guys going to get in the next few days, and what are we drinking?”

Herbert, for the record, lifted a High Noon seltzer that he’d already been sipping into the air. Smith and Leishman each said beer. Jones, the team elder at 44 years old, said tequila.

“There will be plenty of beer, too,” Jones insisted, “but there will be tequila and margaritas and especially martinis.”

Spoken like the average golf tournament spectator. The crowds were scattered Sunday — with most huddled in and around the 18th green-adjacent infrastructure (which provided the best cover from the 90-degree heat) and were on hand to catch the finish — but the large majority of those who trekked the course followed the Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Louis Oosthuizen foursome.

Each was eliminated from title contention as part of Saturday’s team format match play semifinals. DeChambeau — an SMU alum, Grapevine resident and the biggest individual draw this weekend at Maridoe — shot a 1-over 73 on Sunday and his Crushers GC finished tied for seventh with Mickelson’s Highlyfers GC. Mickelson, 54, shot a 4-over 76 on Sunday.

Find more golf coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.