Adelaide veteran Wade Ormsby has spent more than two decades travelling the world to make a living in pro golf. A switch to LIV Golf is now bringing him back to where it all started. Will the league’s reserve player get a shot on home soil?
Being from Adelaide, I always wanted to further my career outside of South Australia. When I was 16 years old, I was set on going to college in America, just purely from an opportunity point of view. That seemed like the best way to go. That was at a time when Tiger had just come out of college and a few other guys were popping up out of there as they always had done. I figured that was the best path for me.
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In 1997 I headed off to college in Houston, Texas, with the intention of being there for four years. I finished up playing after three years. My form was dwindling and, even though I had a pretty good run over there, it was just time to make a decision on whether to turn pro or finish off my studies. I decided to chase the golf side of it – a decision I made with the family – and came back home. Six months later I secured my card in Australia. I played some Von Nida Tour events and a few pro-ams to fill in the gaps and try to get better at what I was trying to do before I made the decision to look overseas for some playing opportunities.
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I bought a round-the-world ticket from Adelaide because that was the cheapest way to do it (explore playing opportunities via qualifying events). I entered some Monday qualifiers on the then-Nationwide Tour that tied in with stage one of European Tour qualifying at Chart Hills Golf Club in the UK. I was playing quite well but missed four in a row before I got into a qualifier in Calgary where I finished eighth, making the cut on the number. That was my first little taste of playing well on an international level. I got into the next week and played well again, but I had to go to the UK to do stage one of Q-school. Ultimately, I would finish third in stage two and finished second at the final stage and, all of a sudden, I was on the European Tour.
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Getting my European Tour card came as a bit of a shock because I never exactly planned to get my card there. You just try to give yourself every opportunity you possibly can and whichever one stuck, you went with. I was really happy about being in Europe, though. It was amazing, to be honest. I just didn’t expect to get there as quickly as I did. It’s a path trodden by so many Aussies, and that was the typical pathway at that time with guys like Adam Scott and obviously Greg Norman and others before that. It was an up-and-down, rocky road there for 10 or 12 years on the European Tour. I started quite well over there in the first couple of years and then I lost my card.
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Strangely, I just had this knack of losing my card and going back to Q-school and getting it back. I still don’t know the reasons why it panned out like that, but I feel like I had my own locker at Q-school there for a while. I think I won my card back maybe five times out of seven attempts or something… a bonus considering you hear a lot of other stories of great players going through the same thing and coming up short. On one hand, you could probably argue that I liked playing with added pressure but then again, I stuffed a lot of tournaments when I was under pressure. I’d have to probably go back deep into my head to think of how I got through all those qualifiers, but I always thought that everyone’s here for a reason, whether they’re good players that are back here because they’ve simply had a poor year, or they’re young guys and they’re inexperienced and they’ll be feeling the heat. Everyone’s feeling it. I guess I just tried to do as good a job as possible and really focused on getting through the week.
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My advice to up-and-coming young players has always been you need an extended plan around Q-school. I sit there and say, “Well, you need to enter as many Q-schools as you possibly can. If you put together a three-year plan of three Q-schools – say Europe, US and Asia – and give yourself three cracks a year at all three schools over three years, that’s nine attempts. You’re going to get through somewhere and then you’re away.” That was my way of looking at it, hence the round-the-world ticket. I was lucky I got through first time, but I think it’s just a matter of giving yourself those opportunities. As long as you’re sitting at home and you’re in Australia – and I’m not having a crack at people – but you need to get out and you need to take that plunge and go to all those foreign places and make those big steps in order to give yourself an opportunity, otherwise no one’s going to come and knock on your door and hand you a card. You’ve got to go and chase it.
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Looking back, I’m proud of myself that as a young bloke, I did what I did and went overseas and threw myself in the deep end to make things work. To pack my bags to go to the Q-schools at 21 years of age, it takes a bit of doing. I was fortunate enough when I did get my European Tour card, there were a lot of good Aussies over there that made my life easier on tour. Guys like Peter Fowler, Peter O’Malley and Marcus Fraser, who got his card probably four or five months before me from winning in Russia. I’d already known Marcus in Australia and now we were doing the same thing at the same time. Brett Rumford had just got his card back over there, too, and Adam Scott was just finishing up in Europe when I started, too. Having mates on tour just makes it easier and more enjoyable. You don’t miss home as much as you would if you were on your own. That first year or two was a lot of fun over there.
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I have lots of great memories on tour but the end of my first season will be hard to top. I think I was sitting 118th on the moneylist going into the final event. I needed to finish top-115, from memory, and I holed a 20-footer at the last to retain my card. That was big. Trying to come out of Q-school, keeping your card and not having limited opportunities… When you retain your status like that, you’re still in the system and away you go. You name your schedule. That really propelled me forwards.
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Why LIV Golf? My ticket came via entry criteria. LIV spread quite a few of the playing opportunities on that tour through different tours around the world. There were two spots on offer in Asia, two from the Aussie tour, which Jed Morgan and Blake Windred secured, and they offered two spots to all the main tours around the world. At that point I’d had a strong season on the Asian Tour the year before and I was third on the moneylist. When Tom Kim elected not to play, that elevated me from No.3 to No.2 on that moneylist. And that’s how my invitation to LIV Golf came about. I was a beneficiary of Tom not wanting to take the plunge, or however you want to look at it. Make no mistake, I was trying to do everything I possibly could to put myself in a position to be able to play LIV’s inaugural event in London. I played at Slaley Hall in the International Series a week before because it wasn’t confirmed whether I was in the LIV event. Sure enough, on the Sunday night, I’m in! I was excited to be part of the biggest prizemoney event in golf history.
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When you’ve got Greg Norman behind something and the team LIV Golf has, I knew that they had a clear vision of what they were trying to do. It wasn’t just about having a swing, trying to disrupt the sport. They were trying to do the best thing for golf and appeal to younger people and make the sport more exciting. All the stuff that we’ve seen and read, that’s what they were setting out to do. And let’s face it, they’ve done it. At the start you don’t know what it’s going to look like, but you’ve just got to trust the people that what they’re trying to do – they’re trying to be the Formula One of golf, or however you want to look at it – is take a truly global approach for the benefit of the sport.
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LIV Golf really appealed to me because I was in a point of my career where I’d been in Europe for a long time and Asia was a great option for me still. So, I had the cards stacked in my favour a little bit, and I’m like, I’m going to go and do this. I’m going to chase every bit I possibly can. It’s turned out fantastic for me and I’ve loved every minute of it. The whole vibe’s different on this tour, whether it comes from the staff, the caddies, the families, the way everyone gets on and the way we’re actually a real, true family. They talk about the LIV Golf family… it is absolutely that and I’m so happy to be part of it. I’ve had some fantastic years over the journey and I’d have to say that 2022 was my most enjoyable year in world golf.
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Critics of LIV Golf see the parties and off-course fun, but we’re competing as hard as we can and we’re always looking out for our teammates. Everything we do, we’re trying to work out how we’re all getting there, and you can’t wait to catch up for dinner. All our locker rooms are arranged in a way where all the teams get together. We’ve never had that team environment in golf. We’ve had a couple little events here and there, two-man teams events, but nothing like this. Obviously that Ripper GC team (formerly Punch GC) took a little while to evolve until Cam Smith and Marc Leishman ultimately came over. But Matty Jones and I were quite consistent when we were together for the start of that and when those guys come, it really felt like it started to gel. Cam was the best player in the world when he arrived, so that was an incredible moment for everyone involved.
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Greg [Norman] is unbelievable. You can see why the guy has been No.1 in the world and so dominant because he’s just so driven to achieve what he sets out to achieve and you couldn’t get a better front man for leading LIV Golf. Whether it’s his fitness or the way he deals with stuff going not so well, he just keeps on pushing forward… and that’s golf in a nutshell. Greg was the guy in the ’80s that I grew up watching and we all dreamt of being and watching him compete in all those Majors… That’s the guy you woke up to watch, and to now be in the same circles as him has been fantastic – a dream for me. He’s always there. He always walks past the Aussie bays when we’re warming up and he’s there, and that’s really cool. It means a lot to me and I’m sure it means a lot to the other guys on the Aussie team, and any other Aussies that played in that inaugural season.
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My mum and I often get into debates about LIV Golf. She was absolutely pro me going to do that and wasn’t against it by any means. It’s just difficult, as an outsider, when you’re not exposed to all the information that we are internally to not be influenced by some of the negative talk going around and the narrative that some are trying to push. We’re in a world where we’re on our phones and there’s so many different avenues and streams for people to read and digest information. And I’ve got a lot of mates, including my family, that read both sides of it. And it’s hard not to pull you away from what you actually really know and believe because of what you’re seeing on the inside. Mum reads the media like most people that love sport and golf. I’m like, “Mum, don’t believe everything you read. This is good. We know exactly what we’re trying to do.” I’ve learned a lot through this whole LIV thing and having lived through both sides, I can confirm that not everything you read is true. My philosophy since day one has always been to put together the best schedule I possibly could, whether it was in Asia, Australia or Europe. You choose those events based on region and trying to retain cards and try to play for the most amount of prizemoney and the best events in the world. That’s what we do as professional golfers and what I’ve done for 22 years – I’ve tried to put the best schedule together that I can. It’s not just one tour and never has been.
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When I heard my home club, Grange Golf Club, was in the running to host Australia’s inaugural LIV Golf event, it was amazing. It was my club as a junior all the way until I went to college in the States. To play at home in Australia is one thing and to play in your own state is another thing, especially for a player like me from a town like Adelaide, where we just haven’t been exposed to many international tournaments. It’s what I love about this tour: it’s going to places where the other tours haven’t been able to get to. I think golf deserves to go everywhere, whether it’s Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Europe. It needs to go everywhere. It needs to be a truly global game and LIV knows that, like we all know that. And that’s what we’re going to do, exactly like Formula One has done. It’s going to be unbelievable.
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The buzz down in Adelaide is real. They really get behind sporting events, whether it’s the cycling or the V8s or whatever. We do attend them well and we pack them out. And LIV is going to be off the scale down there. To think that we are going to have the biggest event in the Southern Hemisphere ever in Adelaide, my hometown, and I have the possibility of playing, it’s unreal and it’s hard to think it’s really happening. Grange Golf Club has got great turf and obviously is a place that I’ve done plenty of laps around. I know where I’m going around that place so, fingers crossed I’m needed.
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If you’re making the trek to Adelaide this month, make time to experience everything the place is famous for. All the little boutique restaurants and bars around town are great. I think that’s something that has really popped in the past five years. There are so many cool things to eat and places to see – it’s a great vibe down here. Obviously, we’re well known for our wineries and all of that, so definitely lock in some tours around the Barossa and Adelaide Hills regions. And don’t forget the microbreweries. What’s great about this month is the AFL is holding its Gather Round in Adelaide the weekend before LIV Golf comes to town, so you can turn your trip into a 10-day holiday and play some golf, watch the pros and catch some AFL in the city. The vibe’s changing in South Australia and I can’t wait for everyone to experience it for themselves.
