LIV Golf's 2026 captains' press conference was, on paper, a routine pre-season formality. In practice it produced three of the more revealing moments of the off-season: Cameron Smith firmly closing the door on reunification speculation, Bubba Watson detailing the cyst surgery that wiped out almost two months of his preparation, and Wen Neman reflecting on a 2025 individual season that rewrote the LIV Golf record book.
The most pointed answer came from Smith. Asked about the previous 24 hours of golf-world headlines — a period dominated by ongoing PGA Tour-PIF reunification chatter — the 2022 Open champion declined to engage with the substance, then made his own position unmistakable.
"I really don't have any thoughts. I haven't had a lot of time to think about it," Smith said. "But I know I'm here to stay. I'm here to support LIV. I'm a captain of a great team and a great group of people. I'm happy where I am. I'm proud of where I am. I think we're doing many great things, especially in Australia."
Smith returned to that Australian theme later, lobbying for the league to expand the home-event model that has worked so spectacularly for him in Adelaide.
"It's unreal — that's such a cool week for us," he said of LIV Adelaide. "The town of Adelaide really gets around the event. They come out and they root for us. You saw it in the playoff against Louis a couple of years ago. They were rooting for us to win, and it's cool. I'd love to see other countries get the same."
Bubba Watson, captain of the rebuilt Range Goats, opened up on an injury that had been more complicated than fans realised. A non-cancerous cyst attached to bone had to be removed, leaving him with what amounted to a lengthy recovery from a self-inflicted bone bruise.
"I feel good," Watson said. "When I cut out the cyst, it wasn't cancerous, so that was good. It was attached to the bone, so the bone had a little indentation. So it's basically a bone bruise. We had to just let it heal. I sat out for, gosh, eight, seven or six weeks."
Watson was equally honest about his team's 2025 form. The Range Goats finished near the bottom of the league standings and Watson, characteristically, refused to dress it up.
"I want guys that are energised and have fun, and I want to help them off the golf course," he said. "I'm not really worried about their golf. They're going to take care of that. I want to be a part of their lives and help them. We had a blast last season — we sucked, but we had a blast."
Wen Neman, by contrast, came into the room with the rare problem of analysing what could have gone better in a record-breaking year. The Chilean captain of Torque GC won five LIV Golf events in 2025, more than any player has won in a single LIV season, and he is heading into 2026 with Abraham Ancer added to his roster.
"I was pretty satisfied," Neman said. "Winning five times is something I look back on now and I'm pretty proud of. It was pretty cool. But I feel like there's a lot to improve. Out of those five wins, I only had six top-tens, so the consistency wasn't there week to week."
Elsewhere on the dais, Lee Westwood used the conference to introduce the rebranded all-British Majestics GC and welcomed two-time DP World Tour winner Laurie Canter to the team. Westwood also flagged the league's structural change to a four-round format as something he expects will help his side after years of three-round sprint events.
"I think the four rounds instead of three may help us as well," Westwood said. "I always felt with three rounds, it was very much a sprint, and if you didn't get into it on the first day, it was hard to catch up. So an extra round might — and more golf for the fans."
Ian Poulter, whose Majestics survived a relegation scare that cost teammate Henrik Stenson his place in the league, said he supported the harsher relegation system rather than fearing it.
"Twenty percent of the league are going to get relegated this year, and it's great for us," Poulter said. "The league have done an amazing job to structure things in the right way to put pressure on OWGR points. We've ticked pretty much every single box."
For a league constantly accused of going soft on its own players, that may have been the most telling line of the day.
---
*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/liv-golf-2026-bubba-watson-injury-cameron-smith-here-to-stay-wen-neman-record). Visit for full coverage.*
