LIV Golf’s Cameron Smith has applied to numerous private Florida clubs

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida – Being Cameron Smith, the highest-ranked player in the world to join LIV Golf, has been something of a wild ride over the last year between winning the Players Championship in his backyard in March, the British Open at St. Andrews in July and being wooed for big bucks by LIV CEO Greg Norman in late August.

When you make your residence just a few short miles from the global home of the PGA Tour, the tour where you earned more than $27 million in your 20s and then abandoned for richer pastures, there are going to be awkward moments at the grocery store checkout line, the gas pump, and even the first tee. And people are going to talk. Oh, how they’ve talked. This is all part of Cameron Smith’s world – for better or worse – since he confirmed the worst-kept secret in golf that he was bolting for LIV Golf.

While that rumor proved to be all-too-true, a close friend of Smith’s, who asked for anonymity in this story, says that the latest slew of rumors flying around the First Coast – that Smith is planning to move because he’s been blackballed by local clubs and can’t find anywhere to play, that he has been escorted off of one private club and is attempting to buy another with his LIV Golf riches – are all “hogwash.”

Smith, who is practicing in the Middle East ahead of the Saudi International in Saudi Arabia, could not be reached, but his agent, Bud Martin, gave a “no comment” on his behalf.

Ever since Smith joined LIV Golf in late August for more than a reported $100 million in signing money, he has been persona non grata at TPC Sawgrass, where he previously practiced when at home, a privilege extended to him as a card-carrying member of the PGA Tour. As first reported by Golfweek, his parking spot as the defending champion of the Players was removed shortly after he jumped ship to LIV after the FedEx Cup.

There’s been speculation for several months that the PGA Tour has put pressure on local clubs and said if they granted Smith a membership, the Tour wouldn’t do business with them in the future.

It is true that Smith’s team sent “feelers” on his behalf, asking if he can practice at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club, Atlantic Beach Country Club and Sawgrass Country Club as well as about joining…