Jay Monahan has conceded this week's Players Championship will be "awkward" due to the absence of reigning champion Cameron Smith.
The high-profile LIV Golf rebel won last year's competition by a single stroke to claim the biggest payday of his career on the PGA Tour, of which Monahan is the commissioner. Smith, 29, recently teased it "would be pretty funny" if he turned up at TPC Sawgrass as a paying fan, but the American was complimentary of the titleholder despite his unfortunate omission.
“Cameron Smith had a great performance in 2022,” said the PGA Tour boss. “He was a deserved champion. I think as I look to this week and I look at the field that we have here and the strength from top to bottom, I think when we leave here on Sunday night we’re going to crown another deserving champion.
“Yes, it’s awkward but ultimately it’s a decision that he made. We’ve got an unbelievable field here this week and a history and tradition that one of these 144 is going to go seek to get.”
The Players Championship crown was one jewel in a hugely successful 2022 campaign for Smith, who announced his departure from LIV last August. In addition to his victory at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida, the Queenslander went on to win The Open at St. Andrews - having finished tied third at The Masters in April.
World No. 3 Rory McIlroy is a slim favourite to win his second Players Championship in the Sunshine State come Sunday, having previously scooped the prize in 2019. This year's event comes under the PGA's new 'designated' category and features a bulked-up first-place prize of £3.8million.
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McIlroy, 33, has become one of the most vocal critics of the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League since its emergence last year. And Smith revealed he received a phone call from the Northern Irishman, who had attempted to dissuade him from taking the money on the breakaway tour.
McIlroy is only just ahead of Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler with the bookmakers to win this weekend, with each of those stars hoping to win maiden titles in Florida. It's possible the champion will come from further downfield, however, after Kurt Kitayama stunned to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational last Sunday.
The only certainty is Smith won't be on hand to make it back-to-back wins at the Players Championship, a feat no-one has managed since the competition started in 1974. Any 'awkwardness' is sure to continue should Smith back up his hint and show up at Sawgrass and provide an all-too-real reminder of what might have been.
