They say you should never ask a question you don’t know the answer to, and it’s no different when you visit the merchandise shop at Adelaide’s Grange Golf Club, which is hosting Greg Norman’s first LIV foray into Australia.
None of the apparel has a price tag, which is enough to raise alarm bells. With trepidation and curiosity, an approach is made to a young shop assistant about the cost of a neat black, quarter zip jumper, with LIV branding all over it.
“That’s $225.”
$225!
The league is backed by Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund, but cash is clearly supposed to be no object for fans, too. If LIV doesn’t sell the gear, it can just package it up and ship it to the next circus stop of golf’s new upstart league – without a price tag.
The success, or not, of Norman’s bold new plan for world golf, and Australia’s place in it, won’t live and die by the cost of a jumper at one event in Adelaide.
Cameron Smith in action during the opening round of LIV Golf Adelaide.Credit: Getty
But it’s a small glimpse into how much money the new league is chasing to stop the haemorrhaging, after splurging more than $1 billion on signing some of the world’s best golfers, including Australia’s British Open champion Cameron Smith in a reported $140 million deal, which LIV chief executive Norman says will create “generational wealth” for the 29-year-old.
The LIV concept, where 48 players compete as individuals and teams for a share of $37 million in prize money at each event, has had limited success so far, in particular in the United States, where television viewing numbers remain minuscule. Without a big broadcast audience, Norman’s 12 team franchises will struggle to commercialise themselves and be sold off to buyers, a la Formula 1 grand prix motor racing.
But LIV’s first trip to Australia is changing the momentum, ever so slightly.
Starved of topline golf due to the goliath PGA Tour playing a near 12-month season and keeping stars in the US, Australians rushed for tickets to watch LIV and Smith. The initial allocation of 20,000 per day quickly sold out, prompting LIV to release a further batch.
Australia was a battleground Norman knew he had a chance to win, given it has largely been ignored for years.
Asked about why he wanted to bring a LIV event to Australia, Norman told the Herald: “It’s simple, because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve been around golf in this country for four-and-a-half decades and I’ve seen the failures of a lot, and I’ve seen the success of a little.
“As a player transitioning into wanting the game of golf represented in the right way in the country, in my mind it was an automatic deal to bring a LIV event down here.”
But not everyone in Australia is pleased.
LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman.Credit: Getty
The establishment in this country has largely backed the status quo, pledging its support for traditional golfing institutions such as the PGA Tour and the European-based DP World Tour, despite Smith, Australia’s best player, joining LIV.
Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland and PGA of Australia boss Gavin Kirkman are both overseas on business and won’t attend the LIV Adelaide event. It’s unlikely Norman will ever be able to host a LIV event in Victoria given Dan Andrews’ government’s close ties to the PGA Tour, which will return the Presidents Cup to Melbourne in 2028 and 2040. When Norman and his executive came looking for a course to host LIV last year, several, including Royal Sydney, said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Yet other states remain interested in the LIV concept, which prompted the South Australian government to provide a multi-million dollar incentive to lure Norman to Adelaide.
Golf NSW sent a delegation of representatives to observe the Grange Golf Club event, while Queensland is the frontrunner to host a second LIV tournament in Australia each year, potentially as early as 2024, given Queenslander Smith’s influence.
So buoyed by the ticket sales and commercial support in Adelaide has he been that Norman has already discussed the idea with the 12 team captains.
“Nobody is bad-mouthing us [in Australia], so that’s what we’re looking forward to,” two-time Masters winner and LIV defector Bubba Watson said. “If people want us, why not?”
Said Smith’s teammate Matt Jones: “I think the only bad-mouthing would be more on the US side and their media side. Everywhere we’ve been in the world, we haven’t had any negative connotations.”
On Friday, the first day of the richest golf tournament ever played in Australia, hundreds of fans are milling outside the gates before 9am local time. The tournament is not due to begin – under a shotgun start, where all 48 players tee off at the same time on different holes – for another three hours.
The first thing you hear is the music, which blares out of speakers all over the course. A concert starts at the end of play each day, and will feature Birds Of Tokyo on the weekend. “Golf, but louder,” reads the slogan. The standard “quiet please” signs held by course marshalls are replaced by ones which ask fans to “zip it”. It’s unapologetically brash.
Outside the course, there are two protesters who are trying to make a noise. They’re wearing The Greens shirts and are demonstrating against Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, accusing LIV of being a sportswashing exercise. They hold a sign referencing the murder of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, and hold an object depicting a severed leg.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Norman were peppered with questions about the kingdom’s human rights record in a pre-tournament press conference. Norman said he’d never raised it with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or any other Saudi public official.
“This is about a golf tournament,” Malinauskas said. “We sell extraordinary amounts of barley, beef, lamb, amongst other things to Saudi Arabia. It’s a $3 billion trading partnership between Australia and Saudi Arabia. They are $4 billion worth of active investments in Australia alone.
“So we choose as a country to actively trade with Saudi Arabia, the largest economy within the Middle East, and we do that knowingly, without at any step of the way compromising what we collectively believe in as a country.”
But how much longer can LIV keep shaking up golf’s world order?
Having absorbed broadcast costs last year and streamed events in their “beta” season on YouTube, LIV found a lukewarm response in the television market for their 2023 rights. It finally signed a multi-year deal with the American-based CW, but viewing audiences have, so far, been poor.
Asked if he can win over the United States, Norman simply responds: “Yes.” He maintains he, and his Saudi paymasters, are in it for the long haul.
In Australia, Seven Network quietly pocketed the rights, but kept the first three events of the year on its streaming platform. The Adelaide event has switched to its linear television channels, and the success – or lack thereof – will likely determine how it broadcasts Smith and his all-Australian Ripper team featuring Marc Leishman for the rest of the year.
As his players slip down the world rankings because LIV has not been granted official status, hence making it harder for them to qualify for the four majors each year, Norman has softened his tone towards the PGA Tour. LIV is still locked in legal action against the PGA Tour, which indefinitely banned defectors, while a court ruling has freed the DP World Tour to not accept LIV players in its events.
Norman’s vision is for LIV to exist within world golf’s ecosystem and have his players free to compete in other events outside the existing 14-event LIV season, which they’re contractually obliged to play.
“From the outset, that’s all we wanted,” Norman said. “It wouldn’t be a world tour [combining with the PGA], it would just be co-existing. What’s wrong with that? We’re going to have our loyal fans because we’re a franchise model. We could easily co-exist.”
