LIV’s Adelaide event has been locked in until 2031 despite the uncertainty that surrounds the future of men’s professional golf.
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South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas announced at the now famous ‘watering hole’ prior to Sunday’s final round teeing off that the popular tournament will remain at current host venue The Grange until 2028 before shifting to a brand new, Greg Norman designed, course at North Adelaide until 2031.
The South Australian government will invest heavily into redeveloping the public golf course at North Adelaide to become the future host, and it will remain a public course.
“North Adelaide Golf Club is a diamond in the rough and we are going to unpick it,” Norman said.
“I’ve been a small piece of a lot of moving parts here but from my perspective as an Australian, I’m proud of the opportunity that we can breathe a little bit more fresh life into the opportunity here in Adelaide.”
The current deal with the Saudi-funded breakaway golf league had been until 2026 and reports circulated in recent days that the Victorian government was trying to pry the event away from the state which has hosted it since it began three years ago.
LIV Adelaide is undoubtedly the most successful of the league’s 14-event annual schedule with the crowd expected to push 100,000 across the three days for the first time to witness the golf, and concerts from popular DJs Dom Dolla and Fisher after attracting crowds of 80,000 and 90,000 in the first two editions.
The scenes at the par 3 ‘watering hole’ when Patrick Reed made a hole-in-one went viral, and the rowdy environment has been revered around the globe.
Adelaide Crowd erupts after hole in one | 00:46
But the lingering cloud over its future has been the uncertainty around what the men’s professional golf landscape will look like going forward.
No one really knows, but the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are currently in talks about a merger between the US Tour and LIV, and the commitment to Adelaide shows that the 54-hole tournaments are here to stay.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, along with Australian Adam Scott, who is a player director, met with US President Donald Trump earlier this month to try get his involvement to reach a deal as nothing has eventuated since an announcement in mid-2023 that the men’s professional golf war would come to an end.
But LIV’s action in Adelaide this week show that their intention is not to fall away as part of the merger.
Norman’s successor as CEO Scott O’Neil revealed on Saturday that he has held conversations with Golf Australia about getting more LIV players to compete in the Australian Open likes local heroes Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and Lucas Herbert, as well as 2023 champion Joaquin Niemann, have in recent years.
O’Neil, who is the former CEO of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, also said that he has also reached out to the LPGA to explore involvement in the women’s game, which has been non-existent.
“I’ve had the privilege of having a couple of conversations with Liz Moore, who’s the interim LPGA commissioner. She’s going to join me in Miami, and we’re going to talk a little bit about how we might contribute to the women’s game,” O’Neil said.
“With LIV’s introduction, we’d like to take all the good that we’ve learned and put that into practice if the women’s game is one that we enter.”
He also highlighted that LIV is looking to expand its influence further across the globe with their sights set on tournaments in China and Japan.
“So we’ll be in Korea this year for the first time. I’m hoping that we’re in Japan,” O’Neil said.
“In short order, that’s a market I’d love to spend some time in. I’d love to have an event in mainland China. Should be no surprise there. We’re in Hong Kong and have a wonderful experience there, but we’d like to add one to China.”
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