What next for Adelaide tournament, latest news, future

Cam Smith will lead the Rippers into action in Mexico over the next four days, just as the Aussie star did during a record-breaking tournament in Adelaide in February.

The show, LIV Golf chief executive Scott O’Neil declared in an email titled “Our Mission Continues” to the rebel tour’s employees at the end of an extraordinary day, will go on for now.

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But whether Bryson DeChambeau is captaining his Crushers or Smith and his Rippers are ripping in at Kooyonga next year is in significant doubt. The show could well be cooked amid reports Saudi Arabia will withdraw its billions of funding.

What that would mean for golf in Australia at a time when the sport was building momentum remains to be seen, but Fox Sports expert analyst Paul Gow said there are clear concerns.

Reading tone in an email can be as tricky as finding the right line into the 15th green at Augusta National, but anyone who has worked in industries under pressure will have noted O’Neil’s subsequent declaration with a raised eyebrow.

As recently as a week ago, but prior to detailed reports in financial journals on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday the Saudi Public Investment Fund was realigning its investments, O’Neil had said the LIV Tour was funded through to 2032.

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Urging his employees to “lean into this moment” while noting the tour has dealt with past “headwinds”, he declared in a phrase bolded for affirmation that “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle”.

“Let’s go out and show the world why LIV Golf is the future of the game. It matters. You mattered. Now, let’s go win,” O’Neil wrote in an email sent at 4pm US west coast time.

You mattered scarcely offers confidence, nor the fact there was no specifics or certainties related to 2027 and beyond.

It is akin to an AFL or NRL board declaring a coach under siege has their full support, or an email from head office parsing mass redundancies as a “streamlining initiative” to ensure a better outcome. Disney sent one yesterday about laying off 1000 staff.

It leaves a sinking feeling in the gut. LIV Golf is such a broad ecosystem that many will be hurt if the tour is kaput. The wealthy golfers will be fine. Senior executives will find other opportunities. But it will be a challenge for many others.

Those running the coffee cart near Kooyonga will take a hit. So, too, the restaurants and hotels that got an extra kick each February. What about the investment in the North Adelaide Golf Club? A collapse would hurt far beyond the LIV links.

O’Neil was to meet with Smith, DeChambeau and other captains in Mexico City last night, and LIV Golf is reportedly fully funded for the remainder of a 14-tournament season that continues with its sixth event at Club de Golf Chapultepec.

This would mean events played in Washington DC at Trump National Golf Club – it has been reported Saudi Arabia could use force majeure stemming from the American war with Iran to break contracts – and South Korea in May, followed by tournaments in Spain, Utah, England, Bedminster (another Trump course), Indiana and Detroit would occur.

The LIV Tour is also making ground in important business aspects in its fifth season, which is due to wrap up in late August.

It told Front Office Sports recently sponsorship revenue was up 40 per cent, ticket sales 129 per cent, its YouTube audience 309 per cent, along with increases in merchandise sales and in corporate hospitality.

Admittedly, while they sound like big numbers, LIV is building from a small base. And finding traction in America has been difficult, which is scarcely surprising given the established tour it is up against.

But LIV did say four of the 14 events for the year would be profitable and clearly the tournaments in Adelaide and South Africa, which drew massive crowds, are at the forefront of what has been a reported A$8.3 billion investment in the tour.

“They are billions of dollars in the hole. There is no prospect of any kind of traction here,” renowned golf journalist Eamon Lynch said on the Golf Channel.

“There’s no audience traction. There’s no sponsors. It has no future. So the idea that somebody else might go in on the assumption that these team franchises would be worth something is speculative.

“If you’re trying to make a sports league solvent on the basis of selling tickets, you’re already losing. It’s a media rights business and they don’t have any. They’ve literally given away their media rights for as long as they’ve existed.

“All Adelaide and South Africa prove is where the rest of the golf tours have failed. They’re golf desperate, golf hungry audiences that aren’t being served.”

Having used major events as a sportswashing exercise, with the 2034 World Cup clearly the cherry on top, the potential LIV Golf shock comes in the context of change on that front. The purported peril for LIV does not come in isolation.

The Guardian reported in December that architecture firms had been asked by the sovereign wealth fund to resubmit plans because designs have been too expensive amid speculation it will reduce the number of stadiums – 15 – it trumpeted to FIFA when bidding for the event.

Saudi Arabia has recently ended its tenure hosting the WTA Tour Finals – tennis led the charge in professionalism for women’s sport – but will host a soon-to-be-introduced men’s Masters tournament from 2028.

It will be a significant event that has caused chaos for the tennis calendar, but it is also a downsizing from stated aspirations.

As the LIV Golf speculation was mounting, there were reports on Wednesday that Saudi Arabian funding for Tom Brady’s Fanatics flag football was at threat amid a change in priorities.

Gow, who had spent the day at the PGA headquarters in Ponte Vedra preparing for a broadcast role for the RBC Heritage event this weekend, had a caveat for his analysis.

Nothing is official and the situation is clearly fluid. PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp said the body knew little more than what had been reported and was monitoring events.

That tallies with those Gow spoke to in Ponte Vedra on Wednesday and he said the fact there was no chatter at the Masters last weekend demonstrated the surprise surrounding the unfolding day of drama in world golf.

“It is unfortunate if this news about LIV is true, and we are not sure about that as yet, because there has been a lot of speculation, but it could be out of Scott O’Neil, the CEOs hands here,” he told foxsports.com.au

“It could simply be the fund, the Public Investment Fund, saying ‘Hey, we are not going to support this anymore. We are done.’ But Adelaide had definitely benefited from having this tour.”

A GOLDEN FUTURE IN DOUBT?

It is just over a year since South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas stood alongside Greg Norman and O’Neil to announce Adelaide as the home of LIV Golf until 2031.

The Great White Shark was going to redesign North Adelaide Golf Club to turn it into a world-class public course that would also host Smith, his mates and the more than 100,000 fans who reportedly contributed $136 million to SA in its first two years – and that figure does not include what was the biggest and best edition in Adelaide so far back in February.

“I’ve dreamed of building a global golf league for 30 years,” Norman said.

“LIV Golf Adelaide is the realisation of what LIV Golf can be around the world. What LIV Golf has built has never been done before, changing the sport for the better while having a lasting impact on communities like Adelaide. I’m honoured to design a world-class course that will benefit current and future generations here in Australia.”

Every Aussie golf fan hopes it continues, but it is now a “watch this space” project, which is also the case for the tournament and the entire LIV movement.

It is also worth noting Australia will host significant events over the next couple of years.

Dual-Masters winner Rory McIlroy will be in Melbourne under for the Australian Open this year, with reports organisers are working hard to tempt DeChambeau downunder as well.

In 2028 the Presidents Cup will return to Royal Melbourne and it is a brilliant event.

But so, too, was the LIV Golf Adelaide event. It drew some outstanding players to a nation which clearly has an appetite for more world-class events given the antipathy it has been treated with by the US, and a wide range of fans with it.

Rolapp said in his state of the union preceding the Players Championship that the PGA would look to regions it has perhaps neglected, but also seek to shorten its tour.

Gow, formerly a professional golfer who had a PGA Tour card, doubts that will lead to the introduction of a US PGA tournament in Australia at anytime in the near future.

“Not at all. Adam Scott has tried for many years to try to get a tournament down there and it has not happened,” he said.

“We did have some Korn Ferry (secondary tour) events down here 15 years ago but it is just not going to happen. They are not going to take it to the world though it would be great if it did. But I can’t see that is going to happen anytime soon.

“They will stabilise the tour. I know Brian Rolapp has indicated they are going to make the tour smaller to fit inside the American landscape of sport with the NFL, so it fits in that space, and they will play smaller tournaments either side.”

Gow also expressed concerns about the impact any closure of LIV might have on junior golfers in Australia, noting it was an area Smith and the Rippers had invested in.

“Cam and Leigh (Marc Leishman) and Herbie (Lucas Herbert) and Elvis Smylie, as a team, have supported Australian golf and junior golf with Golf Australia,” he said.

“They have founded the junior Rippers and they have put money into that and that could potentially go, though I’m not certain of that. But they have put money into golf in Australia.

“So there are a few things that golf in Australia will miss out on. Number one, the tournament, and number two, Ripper’s investment in the kids.”

A TESTING TIMELINE

At different stages throughout its brief history LIV Golf has found itself embroiled in more trouble than Haotong Li found himself on Sunday around Amen Corner at Augusta when posting 8-over for the 12th and 13th holes.

In February 2022, a few months prior to the tour’s launch in England, star signing Phil Mickelson was forced to apologise to its backers for derogatory comments in a private chat made public which led to sponsors pausing or abandoning partnerships.

About the same time Norman, the inaugural chief executive, queried the legality of the PGA Tour’s threat to issue any players who signed on with lifetime bans in an initial salvo for what became a tit-for-tat war.

Antitrust motions, suspensions and other legal threats between the warring tours continued throughout the year after Charl Schwartzel clinched the initial LIV event.

At St Andrew’s soon after, the Old Course was whirring with whispers as Smith produced an extraordinary final round charge to win the 150th Open.

The Queenslander reeled in a hot field including McIlroy with a hot hand, but the tension was apparent soon after in press when he was quizzed about his future.

The writing was on the wall. The Aussie pocketed a reported A$140 million but is facing a future without involvement in the majors given his exemptions expire next year. And who knows what happens if LIV Golf folds at the end of the season.

By the end of the inaugural season, McIlroy declared relationships between the warring partners can only get better if Norman was removed from LIV, with the Aussie golfer come entrepreneur the target of ire from the golf establishment.

But the big signings keep coming, with Jon Rahm signing at the end of 2023 for a deal estimated to be worth A$400 million after a season where Talor Gooch edged Smith and Brooks Koepka to win the individual award.

In 2024 Anthony Kim was announced as a wildcard after almost a decade in exile as he struggled with mental health and addiction concerns, while Graeme McDowell was banned for a tournament for failing an anti-doping test.

It was clear by October that year that the sharks were circling Norman after a controversial tenure in charge. He was officially relieved of his duties last February when O’Neil, the man trying to boost staff morale now, was handed the reins.

While moves continued to enable LIV Golfers to earn world golf rankings, with exemptions granted for entrance into The British Open, the divide between the rival bodies continued apace without any real progression towards peace.

But the decision by Koepka to leave the LIV Tour and seek a return to the PGA Tour just before Christmas prompted the PGA to offer a Returning Member Program to former major winners including DeChambeau, Smith and Rahm.

Soon after Patrick Reed announces he would rejoin the PGA Tour in 2027 after committing to spending the season on the DP World Tour in another blow to LIV Golf.

And then the news broke on April 15, 2026. LIV Golf was in peril, with The Financial Times reporting the Public Investment Fund was about to cut its funding. What happens next will be fascinating.