Adelaide to host inaugural Australian LIV Golf Tournament
LIV Golf is coming to Australia in 2023 and Adelaide will host the first tournament.
The Grange Golf Club in Adelaide will host the first Australian tournament of LIV Golf on April 21-23 2023.
LIV Golf spokesperson Greg Norman was in Adelaide today and churned out the ubiquitous “grow the game” phrase as part of the announcement.
“This is an opportunity to grow the game with generations of Australians while connecting them with star players like Cameron Smith who are building a new platform for golf around the globe,” Norman said.
“There is massive potential for Australia to play a bigger role in this great sport, and I couldn’t be more excited to showcase Adelaide for our league’s debut year.”
The announcement capped off a big week for South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas having earlier announced the state had secured the inaugural AFL ‘Magic Round’ for 2023.
“This is exactly what our economy needs as we emerge from the pandemic, in particular our hospitality sector which has done it tough over the past couple of years,” Malinauskas said. “LIV Golf will bring some of the world’s best golf players to SA for an event the likes of which our country has never seen before.”
The Grange Golf Club was named as the tournament host after strong lobbying by the South Australian government to bring the event to The City of Churches. The Grange Golf Club is home to two golf courses – the West and the East.
While the West Course at Grange is often considered to be the better of the two, the East Course was redesigned in 2012 by Greg Norman’s golf design company.
Reports suggest a handful of Sydney and Melbourne’s most famous golf clubs had rejected Greg Norman’s offer to host the event, preferring to align themselves with the PGA Tour and having reservations about the source of funding for the new rebel tour.
LIV Golf is being directly funded by the Saudi Arabian Government; a regime often accused of sportswashing its human rights abuses. The Saudi government were directly implicated in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi among many other human rights atrocities.
Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Phil Mickelson are among some of the world’s best golfers who have each received over US$100million just to join the tour. On top of the guaranteed money, Johnson for example earned over $35million in prizemoney by playing in eight events in 2022.
The world’s best golf players are set to play in Adelaide with the first ever Australian @LIVGolfInv tournament secured.
It’ll be played from April 21 to 23, just days after all 18 @AFL club play in SA.
Bringing with it more visitors, more economic activity and more jobs. pic.twitter.com/VErg0lhLEz
— Peter Malinauskas (@PMalinauskasMP) November 13, 2022