{"id":465162,"date":"2026-02-07T21:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465162\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T21:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:56:09","slug":"son-of-aussie-tennis-greats-claims-victory-on-debut-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465162\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of Aussie tennis greats claims victory on debut in Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian golfer Elvis Smylie has made a dazzling start to his life as a LIV Golf player, winning the season\u2019s opening event under floodlights in Saudi Arabia on his tour debut with a flawless display that left even mighty Jon Rahm in the shade.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old Australian left-hander recorded a wonderful bogey-free final-round, an eight-under 64, to win the title by one shot from Spanish great Rahm in Riyadh on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

\"Elvis<\/p>\n

Elvis Smylie holds aloft the trophy after winning on debut in Saudia Arabia.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rahm had put massive pressure on the Queenslander with four successive birdies to finish his round, leaving Smylie to have to par the final hole for victory.<\/p>\n

The debutant only made the fringe of the green with his approach and had to get down in two from distance for the victory, which he achieved with a superb long putt that drifted just past the hole and a return three-footer for the lucrative triumph.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s a dream come true. I really didn\u2019t know what to expect this week, playing at night, obviously a whole different ball game out here,\u201d said Smylie.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I wanted to come out here and make a statement. I wanted to prove that I\u2019m one of the best out here, and I feel like I\u2019ve done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the culmination of a magnificent week\u2019s work featuring a consummate front-running display as Smylie dropped only two shots all week while finishing on a 24-under par total of 264.<\/p>\n

Astonishingly, he covered his final 39 holes in 17-under without dropping a shot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian golfer Elvis Smylie has made a dazzling start to his life as a LIV Golf player, winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-465162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}