Cameron Smith — the Australian major winner who captains Ripper GC, LIV Golf's all-Australian team — has said he would "100%" return to the PGA Tour if the Saudi-funded breakaway league folds, while insisting he wants LIV to survive.

Smith, who signed with LIV in 2022 on a deal reportedly worth $140 million, made the comments ahead of this week's LIV Golf New York event. "That's where everyone would want to be for sure, 100%," he said of the PGA Tour, according to The Guardian. "It would go back to old times."

His remarks land four months after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) — LIV's sole financial backer — announced in April 2026 that it will not continue funding the league beyond this season. Multiple reports now say the LIV Golf Team Championship, scheduled for late August in Michigan, may be canceled amid the league's financial troubles, though players have reportedly been told to prepare as if it is still on.

Smith said he is contracted to LIV until the end of next year and had made no effort to seek anything else. But his blunt acknowledgment that the tour he left would be the natural landing spot for every LIV player is the clearest sign yet that the league's four-year run is approaching a reckoning.

"I would hate to see it go away," Smith said of LIV, which he called "great fun out here." Reuters first reported his comments on 4 August.

The backdrop is stark. In January 2026, Smith, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau — all major champions who would qualify for a PGA Tour return — rejected the tour's open door and committed to LIV for the 2026 season. That same month, Rory McIlroy said the league was losing steam, with no new big names arriving following Brooks Koepka's exit.

Yet LIV's appeal in markets the PGA Tour had long neglected was real. More than 115,000 fans attended LIV Golf Adelaide across the week in February 2026 — the highest attendance for any golf event in Australian history. Smith, as captain of Ripper GC, was central to that success.

Without PIF money, though, the league has no obvious financial path forward. Its roster of recognizable names has thinned rather than grown since its 2022 launch, when it lured away the likes of Smith, Koepka, DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson with nine-figure contracts.

Smith has been consistent about his comfort with the decision he made. In June 2023, days after the framework agreement between the PIF and PGA Tour was first announced, he said he was "at peace" with joining LIV.

That peace now looks conditional on LIV's survival — something no longer guaranteed.