MELBOURNE, May 1 (Reuters) - An Australian state hosting one of LIV Golf's most successful events has been left in a bind over a A$45 million ($32 million) golf course upgrade as uncertainty swirls over the future of the breakaway tour.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has spent more than $5 billion on LIV since its 2022 launch, confirmed on Thursday it will cut funding at the close of the 2026 season, leaving the circuit scrambling for new backers.
South Australia, which hosts LIV Golf Adelaide in the state's capital, has already started work on redeveloping the North Adelaide Golf Course with a Greg Norman-designed layout to host the event in 2028.
The project, which involves felling nearly 600 trees, has already sparked protests, with demonstrators gathering at the course this week to hold a "vigil" for the trees.
"The government only ever committed to this project on the basis that it was going to be supposedly the jewel in the crown for LIV Golf," said state lawmaker Robert Simms, who has campaigned against the redevelopment.
South Australia's top government official, Premier Peter Malinauskas, defended the project, which was green-lit over a year ago.
"Well look, LIV hasn't been cancelled so I think ... we'd be putting the cart before the horse if we just, sort of, decided to cancel the golf course when LIV very much intend to be here into the future," he told ABC Radio Adelaide on Friday.
"Now, let's wait and see how that plays out."
RECORD CROWDS
While LIV's team-based format and emphasis on entertainment has been a turn-off for golf purists, the Adelaide event has been a massive hit since launching in 2023 in a country which struggles to lure golf's biggest names.
More than 115,000 fans turned up to The Grange Golf Club in February, with the Saturday tally of 38,500 marking the largest single-day crowd in LIV Golf's brief history.
Adelaide was named the World's Best Golf Event for three years running by the World Golf Awards, an industry awards programme for golf tourism.
The tournament is a pillar of the state Labor government's major events programme, with officials claiming the 2023-2025 editions pumped a total of A$217 million into South Australia's economy.
Malinauskas said he had assurances from LIV Golf chief executive Scott O'Neil that the event would continue as planned.
"As far as South Australia's concerned, particularly given the unqualified success this event has been economically for our state, that's a good thing," he said.
"Having said that, I'm not naive to the fact that these reports have been going on for a good, you know, almost a fortnight and it's something we continue to monitor very closely."
While golfers who signed up to LIV were banned by the major U.S. and European tours, they have always been welcome to play on Australia's small tour which has enjoyed the buzz they bring to local events.
LIV's all-Australian Ripper GC team captained by Cameron Smith won the team title in Adelaide in February to the delight of fans and local golf officials.
"Not only are they great golfers, they're great ambassadors for Australia," James Sutherland, the chief executive of governing body Golf Australia, told Reuters.
"They not only play here on the local tour but push their mates on the LIV tour to come down as well."
($1 = 1.3891 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Stephen Coates)
