South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has hailed LIV Golf’s impact on the Australian golfing landscape, claiming the league has satiated the country’s appetite for elite-level competition. The league’s return for a second consecutive year in Adelaide serves as a subtle dig at the PGA Tour, which has been criticized for neglecting Australia in recent years.
Outside of the Australian Open and Australian PGA Championship, which are part of the European Tour, Australia has seen a dearth of top-level tournaments. The once-prestigious Australian Masters, which welcomed players like Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, and Tiger Woods as winners, was last held in 2015.
However, the arrival of LIV Golf has changed the landscape, with former Open champion Cameron Smith returning to Australia for the first time since December. The tournament also marks a remarkable resurgence for Greg Norman, the Australian golfing legend who has been instrumental in bringing LIV Golf to the country.
Malinauskas praised Norman’s role, saying, “We always took a calculated risk as a government that Australian golf fans had been starved of high-quality professional golf for decades. I mean, there’s a generation of golf fans in this country that had never seen elite golf before.”
He added, “And we took a bit of a hunch that people would respond to the opportunity to see the world’s best golfers here in South Australia, and they responded in droves.”
LIV Golf’s economic impact has also been significant, with last year’s event generating over £50 million for the local economy. The attendance figures are expected to surge this year, with the capacity at The Grange increasing to accommodate as many as 90,000 spectators over the week.
Norman, who became LIV Golf’s chief executive in 2021, expressed his pride in bringing the league to Australia. “That was one of my initiatives when I was asked to come on board as CEO and commissioner of LIV,” he said. “I knew the value of Australia, what Australia can represent to the game of golf and what Australia lacked.”
He added, “To be able to bring the quality of Jon Rahm plus 53 other guys down here for the Australians to experience was meaningful for me because I came down here [as a player]. “It was my mission every year as a player to bring back my skills to show Australia. To grow Australian golf the best way I possibly could.”
LIV Golf’s presence in Australia has undoubtedly reinvigorated the sport, filling the void left by the PGA Tour and providing Australian fans with the opportunity to witness world-class golf on their doorstep.
