Adelaide Premier Claims Australian Golf Was ‘Looked Over And Ignored’ Before LIV Golf

After its season opener in Riyadh, the LIV Golf League moves to Adelaide for, arguably, it's most popular event on the calendar.

Last year, nearly 100,000 fans attended the week at The Grange Golf Club and, for 2025, those numbers are set to be even bigger, especially as the South Australia tournament is taking place in a summer calendar spot of mid-February.

Throughout its two previous iterations, fans have flocked to the course and, according to Peter Malinauskas, the 47th Premier of South Australia, the reason is due to the country being previously starved of top-level golf.

Speaking on Wednesday, Malinauskas was posed the question why LIV Golf had been so popular and, in response, the 44-year-old stated: "There are two reasons. One, because Australian golf wasn't getting the recognition that it deserves from investors in the rest of the world. This is a sporting nation, and golf is part of our sporting identity.

"It was sort of looked over and ignored. Australian golf fans could only dream of having a Brooks Koepka playing here amongst all of the others. Like it was seen as a fantasy. LIV Golf gave the opportunity to achieve that. Naturally fans responded. That's the first reason.

"The second reason is the LIV product itself. Beyond the superstars, the feel walking around a LIV event is unique. It's a bit different, and it accords with the egalitarian nature of Australia, that idea that things should be accessible, slightly more relaxed, taking the golf seriously but not taking each other too seriously, not taking ourselves too seriously, that's part of who we are.

"When you can get in the proximity of a superstar like Brooks (Koepka), but do it while you're wearing shorts and a beer in your hand and just a bit of music in the background and then when the party starts later on to really throw yourself at it, that's Australia. It's the opportunity that LIV presented for high-quality professional golf in Australia, tick, but then the product accords with who we are as a country. It's just a beautiful synergy that comes to life."

Previously, the likes of Rory McIlroy has called for more golf worldwide, claiming that a "dream scenario is a world tour" and that "the Australian Open, for example, should almost be the fifth Major."

Currently, along with LIV Golf Adelaide, the other flagship tournaments in Australia are the Australian PGA Championship and Australian Open on the DP World Tour. However, although those events draw big names from the home country, international players could be put off from playing in them due to travel complications, as well as the high tax bracket where a reported 50% of the winnings is given back to the country.

Despite this, Malinauskas claims that LIV Golf Adelaide is "now the pinnacle of Australian sporting events to attend," adding "it is now on people's bucket lists.

"Once upon a time they'd say, you ask a young teenager what's your sporting bucket list in Australia and you might have an AFL grind final, get to the Australian Open. Well, now LIV Golf is on that list. People want to do it."

Last year, the all Australian quartet of Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones and Lucas Herbert claimed the team title in Adelaide via a thrilling playoff. Following on from the tournament in April, questions then arose of a possible second event in the country.

For 2025, LIV Golf will visit a total of nine countries over its 14 event schedule but, when asked about the possibility of a second event, the League's new CEO, Scott O'Neil, stated that "at this particular moment we're going to focus on Adelaide."

The contract length for Adelaide runs until 2026 and, currently, it's unclear as to whether LIV will remain at The Grange or search afar for another venue. This is an aspect that Premier Malinauskas is all to familiar with, claiming that "we've made no secret of the fact that we understand it's a competitive environment. Part of our frustration is South Australia has a history of going first on an event, building it up to be something magnificent and then other jurisdictions come to try to pinch it off of us."

He went on to add: "As I said earlier, we're going to earn the right. I can't look Scott in the eye and say, look, you have to bring LIV back to Adelaide just because we've had it before. We have to earn the right to be here. We have to show we're committed to it. We have to show we are invested in it. That's the collaboration. We're not resting on our laurels. We understand there are other jurisdictions that would like this event. I get that. We've just got to work at it."

In response to the Premier's comments, O'Neil replied "our intention is to be back in Adelaide. That's our intention. We have had interest, as you might imagine, given the success of this event. But I started this press conference just by talking about the key elements and ingredients, and you don't have to look too far...

"(Adelaide has) extraordinary civic leadership, you have visionary leadership, you have a world class golf course, you have a place where our players are comfortable, you have extraordinary restaurants, the hospitality is great, the people are great. I hope that we're here for a very long time. That's the intention."