Australian Open saves SA government from a LIV Golf bunker

Spending at least $45 million to upgrade a golf course so it can host a tour that’s filed for bankruptcy is a hard sell.

But that’s the position the Malinauskas government would have been lumped with had it not secured hosting rights to the Australian Open golf tournament from 2028.

The announcement in May that the prestigious, traditionalist golf event would be coming to the redeveloped North Adelaide Golf Course has taken some of the sting out of what would otherwise have been a nasty political headache surrounding LIV Golf’s financial demise.

The breakaway tour filed for bankruptcy in the US overnight, four months after Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund announced it would be pulling its billions in funding.

LIV Golf chief executive Scott O’Neil said the move was intended to keep the league in business while transitioning to a player-first ownership model. It hopes to exit bankruptcy in early 2027.

But the optimism of the press release doesn’t quash the uncertainty about what LIV Golf will look like next year and whether it can hold onto the top talent — and party-like atmosphere — that made it such a success in Adelaide.

The tour owes huge sums to creditors, including its star players. Jon Rahm is owed more than $10 million, Bryson DeChambeau nearly $8 million, and Australian Cameron Smith about $6.5 million. 

They could all walk away if not convinced by LIV’s new model.

Premier Peter Malinauskas went all in on the LIV Golf vision back in February 2025, announcing a six-year contract extension until 2031 and that it would be moving to a new Greg Norman-designed championship course at North Adelaide in 2028.

The government has been consistent that there was more to the course upgrade than just LIV Golf, pointing out it will be used by the public outside of events.

But it’s also hard to imagine a world where the $45 million upgrade gets green-lighted without LIV Golf in the picture; indeed, the premier indicated as much at the time, saying the 2031 extension “justifies the investment”.

“We didn’t want to invest heavily in North Adelaide and face the prospect of it [LIV Golf] being lost from South Australia,” he said in February 2025.

As the negative headlines about LIV Golf’s finances piled up, so too did the questions about the justification for the course upgrade.

The development and its loss of 585 trees was always going to spark opposition from parklands advocates, the Greens and elements of Adelaide City Council.

But the prospect of spending $45 million on an upgraded course without a major event connected to it risked a much broader backlash.

If you wanted a sense of the political importance of securing the Australian Open, you only have to look at how prominently it featured in the government’s talking points about LIV Golf’s bankruptcy today.

“We’ve been focused on not just LIV Golf but other opportunities,” Labor minister Clare Scriven said, “which is why we’ve been so keen to secure the Australian Open.”

Cabinet colleague Nick Champion — who in April said the prospect of LIV Golf ceasing to exist was “just speculation” and “not a question we would ask ourselves” — said today that the state government was not “over-reliant” on one event.

“I appreciate that we’re going to have endless media speculation about LIV Golf, but we’re upgrading the golf course so that we can have a world class golf course next to a world class [Adelaide] Oval in a world class city,” he said.

“And we’ve got the Australian men’s and women’s open.”

The debate moves on

The fight over the North Adelaide course upgrade appears to have largely moved on.

That’s partly due to the Australian Open announcement, but also because attention has shifted to the government’s controversial MotoGP circuit in the eastern parklands, which will require the felling of at least 377 trees.

Opposition leader Ashton Hurn was today asked whether LIV Golf filing for bankruptcy raised questions about the need for the North Adelaide Golf Course upgrade.

“It does, but I think that we’re kind of past that point really when you look at how many trees have now been pulled out,” she said.

Ms Hurn was more focused today on questioning whether South Australian taxpayers had any exposure in LIV Golf’s demise — something the government denies.

“We are good at writing events contracts,” Mr Champion said, “we don’t provide support for events that aren’t held.”

Over to you, Kooyonga

If LIV Golf can get out of its current predicament, it is next due in Adelaide in March 2027 at the Kooyonga Golf Club.

The western suburbs club has been waiting on an advanced payment from LIV Golf to help prepare.

The status of that fee remains unclear.

But Australian golf commentator Jimmy Emanuel believes LIV Golf will put on a tournament next year, even if it looks a little different.

“The cost of putting on a tournament in that scale to attract music acts like Fisher is a lot,” he said.

“Just building grandstands, building hospitality, those are big commitments financially — the scale of the investment is not going to be the same as it was from Saudi Arabia.

What happens beyond next year is a matter of anyone’s guess — but the government remains certain of one thing.

Even if LIV dies, the North Adelaide course upgrade is set to survive.