Gooch leans heavily into his Oklahoma roots for rebranded OKGC

How much pride does Talor Gooch take in his red-dirt Oklahoma roots? He’s willing to represent his home state, even if it means enduring some good-natured heckling in other parts of the country. 

Case in point: At the party hole at last year’s LIV Golf Indianapolis, Gooch selected Destiny Child’s “Say My Name” as his walk-up song. The fans happily obliged as he teed up his ball. But then Gooch stepped back, reached into his bag and slipped on a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander No. 2 Oklahoma City Thunder jersey. 

Given that the locals were still stinging from their Indiana Pacers losing to the Thunder in the NBA Finals two months earlier – with SGA named as Finals MVP – you can imagine the swift turn in the gallery’s response. “Say My Name” quickly turned into “Boo My Name.” 

“All of a sudden, everyone is not saying my name, they’re saying a lot of other words at me,” Gooch recalled with a smile. “It’s one of my favorite moments to stand in front of the crowd, put the Oklahoma City jersey on, and get absolutely berated by the people.” 

Gooch has told that story often, most recently on Tuesday in Oklahoma City when his Smash GC officially unveiled its rebranding to OKGC, establishing Oklahoma as the team’s home market. 

Along with the name change, the team also introduced new branding visuals that includes a bison; a white star with “46” in the middle, a nod to Oklahoma’s first state flag and its admission as the 46th state in the U.S.; and a color palette with primary colors of medium-dark orange and Azure-ish blue.

Gooch, who was born in Midwest City, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma State University, was instrumental in the rebranding process. In his first year as captain, he embraced the opportunity to make Oklahoma the first LIV Golf team directly aligned with a U.S. market. Even the location of Tuesday’s media event at the Harkins Theatre in the Bricktown neighborhood of Oklahoma City was special to him. 

“I grew up going to a lot of movies at Harkins Theatre, which for those of you that are from around here know that was here way before the Thunder were here,” Gooch said. “I grew up playing a bunch of sports, as most kids in Oklahoma do. I wrestled growing up. I had to cut weight one time, and I said I'm done wrestling. So, I grew up in the locker room. I grew up playing team sports. Whenever LIV came along, I was a believer from the beginning. 

“Just knowing the passion of the fans here in Oklahoma, the passion of the people here in Oklahoma, I would say it's a dream come true, but growing up you didn't dream of this because this wasn't possible. It's amazing to be a part of something that is now possible, and it's exciting to be a part of what the future of it's going to be.” 

Gooch not only is an original LIV Golf player – he competed in the league’s inaugural tournament in London in 2022 and is one of just eight players to have started all 56 league tournaments to date – but is also one of its more accomplished performers. He’s won four regular-season tournament titles, has celebrated seven team victories (and is the only player to win with three different teams), and joins Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson as the only players to win a season-long Individual Championship and a Team Championship. 

Gooch also helped bring LIV Golf to his home state in 2023 when the league visited Tulsa. But his biggest achievement may very well be serving as the conduit between the league and his home state – and the example it sets for other teams seeking their own U.S. market.

“The success of the LIV Golf league will be a lot to do with the success of the franchises, the teams,” said his OKGC teammate Graeme McDowell . “For Talor to be leading the first U.S.-centric kind of geographically located team here in Oklahoma, I think it's extra special. He creates a culture. He creates an energy for our team. We're proud to be representing him and this state. … 

“Proud, proud to be part of this team, leaning on Talor's connections and his roots in the community here. I think creating a fan base and being able to give back to the community philanthropically, just all the levels, all you need to be able to foundationally build a great team, I think we'll be leaning on this guy.” 

Gooch is the lone Oklahoman on the team, and he reiterated Tuesday that he’s very happy with teammates McDowell, who’s from Northern Ireland; and Americans Jason Kokrak and Harold Varner III. He doesn’t plan to make any lineup changes in the foreseeable future. Even so, he was asked about the possibility of one day having an all-Oklahoma roster. 

Gooch responded with his vision for the bigger impact of the team’s identity. 

“One of the coolest stories I always tell people about LIV is the first year in Adelaide in Australia, it was 2023,” Gooch said. “I ended up winning. I had a great week. It was fantastic. It was really the first tournament that put LIV on the map. I don't know the numbers, but there were too many people to count. 

“I was leading walking down the 18th fairway, had about 80 yards into the green, and it took me about five minutes to get from my second shot to the green because all of a sudden, a sea of thousands of people flooded the fairway. Thankfully I had a security guard to help me navigate through that. 

“But early in the week at each LIV event next to a handful of tee boxes, there's a specific place for kids to go get autographs. The Australian team is the Rippers. Cam Smith, the captain of the team, Open champion in 2022 at St Andrews. I see a bunch of kids. We're about to tee off, and I just hear kids saying, ‘I want to be a Ripper one day. I want to be on the Aces team one day.’ It just made me realize, oh, my gosh, this team thing is real. 

“Once you see kids talking about, I want to play for that team. I want to do that. It just made me think about the kid in me growing up saying I want to be Jason White, I want to be Troy Aikman. I want to play for the Dallas Cowboys. I want to go play for the Los Angeles Lakers. 

“That's what I'm most excited about is the idea that at one of our OJGT [Oklahoma Junior Golf Tour] tournaments I go out to this year that I'm going to meet a kid who's 14, 15 years old who's going to say, I'm going to come play for OKGC one day. For me that's the new dream.”