LIV GOLF PRAISED FOR WHAT PGA TOUR COULDN'T DO AS CAMERON SMITH BRACED FOR HOMECOMING

South Australia premier Peter Malinauskas believes LIV Golf has satiated the appetite for elite golf in the county with its event in Adelaide in a sly dig against the PGA Tour.

The league is back Down Under for a second consecutive year after the success of its inaugural edition. Outside of the Australian Open and Australian PGA Championship, which are part of the European Tour, there is a lack of top-level tournaments across the country compared to its heritage in the sport.

Opportunities for fans to see their favourite players diminished from 2015 when the Australian Masters happened for the final time. Ian Poulter, Justin Rose and Tiger Woods were winners of the tournament this century, while Greg Norman was the record six-time champion in his homeland.

This weekend, however, will see former Open champion Cameron Smith return to Australia for the first time since December - when he finished tied for 17th in the Australian Open. Before that, he missed the cut at the Australian PGA Championship in what was an embarrassing moment for the former world number two.

And Malinauskas believes Norman has been influential in bringing golf back to Australia, claiming the country has been neglected of world-class competition over the years. He said: "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.

"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."

The politician continued: "Critically, from the state government's perspective, it's on track to meet all the economic metrics that we care so much about, particularly overseas and interstate visitation. And that's given the city a real buzz. You feel that walking around, and I suspect as we get closer to the event, that will only increase."

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Since becoming LIV Golf's chief executive in 2021, the Australian has been a driving force behind bringing the tour to the country. "That was one of my initiatives when I was asked to come on board as CEO and commissioner of LIV," he said at a press conference on Wednesday.

"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."

Last year's event is said to have added over £50 million to the local economy and was named the World’s Best Golf Event of the Year at the 10th annual World Golf Awards. Over 77,000 spectators attended the tournament, and significantly more are expected this year with the capacity increasing at The Grange.

As many as 30,000 fans can now attend each day, meaning as many as 90,000 could be present across the week. Those increases in crowd size will also extend to the infamous Watering Hole on the 12th.

2024-04-24T15:05:08Z dg43tfdfdgfd