It was a bumper day one at the second edition of LIV Golf Adelaide. Here are some of the things we noticed from around the grounds.
Ripper GC captain and Open champion Cam Smith
Extraordinary scenes at The Grange Golf Club as some 35,000 spectators attended day one of LIV Golf Adelaide. Spectators following the marquee grouping of Cameron Smith, Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia were five deep lining the fairway on the first hole.
By the time they reached the 18th green, it’s estimated there were between 8,000-10,000 lining the fairway, surrounding green and in the corporate marquee. LIV officials anticipate the total attendance for the week to surpass 90,000 over the three days. By comparison, the total attendance figure for an Australian Open tends to be around 35,000-40,000 for the four-round tournament.
Leish’s New Year’s Resolution
Ripper GC’s Marc Leishman concedes he’s adopted a new fitness regime after over-indulging during the Christmas period. “I have actually been in the gym. I wanted to get in somewhat decent shape. Not just for this week – yes, for this week but for life. I’m playing a lot of basketball with my kids, my boys now, so they love that. I don’t want to get too slow and get beaten by too much. A little incentive there, as well.
“I’m just feeling good, just feeling better on yourself. It’s not good when you look in the mirror and swear at yourself, which is what I did just after Christmas.”
Tuohy heaps praise on LIV Golf Adelaide
Veteran tournament promoter Bob Tuohy soaked in the atmosphere at The Grange and waxed lyrical about the scale and magnitude of LIV Golf Adelaide. The Adelaide native staged 198 tournaments over a 43-year span during which he responsible for some of the most iconic moments in Australian golf.
It was Tuohy who invited a young Greg Norman to the 1976 West Lakes Classic at The Grange where he would record his first professional victory in a Hall Of Fame career. Bringing LIV to Australia was a huge achievement, according to Tuohy: “You can’t find anything bigger in the world. I mean, the build this week is like a British Open. It’s massive – $20 million is the build this week. I think it’s a huge success. A massive plus for Adelaide, Australia. It’s given golf a big injection, it’s created a brand new audience. A younger and broader audience to be interested in golf. A large percentage of the attendance this week are non-golfers and that’s got to be good for the game.”
Rules royalty to the rescue
Respected Australian rules officials Trevor Herden and Andrew Langford-Jones made their LIV Golf debuts in Adelaide. Both were late reinforcements to the nine-strong panel of officials to streamline the time it takes to officiate upon rules incidents.
For Herden, it was just two years since he suffered a life-threatening cardiac arrest at Sorrento Golf Club on the Mornington Peninsula. Thankfully, an ex-cardiac nurse witnessed his fall from a golf cart and came to his aid.
Pitch perfect
Australia’s Matt Jones produced the ‘Shot of the Day’ at The Grange, hitting the flagstick at the 158m par-3 14th. However, the ball failed to drop and nestled just an inch from the hole.
Meanwhile, England’s Tyrrell Hatton came within centimetres of acing the ‘Watering Hole’, the 151-metre par 3 12th hole where Chase Koepka’s ace attracted worldwide headlines last year.
Kids line up to ink up
In one of the most unusual scenes at an Australian golf tournament, queues of children lined up to the entrance of the ‘Tattoo Parlour’ in the fan village to have a ‘airbrush tattoo’. Three stylists were kept busy all day, using airbrush machines to apply fans with one of the 13 LIV team emblems.
The airbrush tattoo is applied to the skin with a spray gun, using stencils of team logos to give a distinctive look. Apparently, the stencil can last two or more days, although alcohol can immediately remove the ‘tattoo’.
Elsewhere in the fan village, youngsters could try the ‘Pressure Putt Challenge’ or kick an AFL football at targets, while the Kids Fun Zone caters for toddlers and small children.
