LIV Golf has “secured its foothold in Australia,” with Adelaide retaining hosting rights for its tournament until 2031, “despite increasing speculation of a reunification of the PGA and LIV tours and what that could mean for the sport’s landscape.” The announcement signals LIV’s “ambitions to remain a prominent player in world golf despite increasing efforts to reunify the PGA and LIV Golf tours,” which included PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan meeting with President Donald Trump last week. Adelaide’s hosting contract with LIV Golf had been “due to end after its fourth event in 2026,” but with around 100,000 fans attending in each of the past two years it “prompted the South Australian state government to bid for an extension” (AP, 2/15).
TREADING WATER: GOLFWEEK’s Eamon Lynch wrote four years “into this folly, LIV Golf is going nowhere,” but you would be “forgiven for believing that LIV has never been in a stronger position.” Even the Saudis “have a limit on lunacy, and LIV must be sorely testing it.” Lynch: “If the Tour wished to avoid having golf be stained by the sportswashing of authoritarian governments, now would be the time to wait out LIV. But this is commerce and not conscience.” The Tour’s execs, some of its players and all of its investors “want that Saudi infusion.” Lynch noted if the Saudis obtain terms similar to that of the private equity investors in the PGA Tour Enterprises, then the spend in golf will “total somewhere close to” $7B. Lynch: “The coming weeks and months will see the Saudis settle for much less than the ownership of men’s professional golf that they aspired to. The Tour will settle for embracing sportswashers thanks to the disloyalty and greed of its own members” (GOLFWEEK, 2/15).
