South Australia embraces LIV Golf Adelaide move to summer in 2025
In contemplating a schedule move for the third edition of LIV Golf Adelaide in 2025, tournament officials and South Australian decision-makers considered dates in either February or May.
Ultimately, hosting LIV Golf’s highest-attended tournament for the first time during the Australian summer was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
"Summer in South Australia is about to get a whole lot louder," said South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas this week when the Feb. 14-16 dates were announced.
The first two visits to Adelaide have been wildly successful, with a LIV Golf-record 94,327 fans attending the three rounds earlier this year at The Grange. They went home happy after seeing their home-team Ripper GC, led by Cam Smith, win the team title against Stinger GC in LIV Golf’s first-ever team playoff.
That event and the inaugural Adelaide tournament in 2023 were played in April, two weeks after the Masters, which, as the golf season’s first major, often dominates the conversation in its immediate aftermath. In addition, the Easter holiday and Adelaide’s AFL Gather Round festival of Aussie Rules Football also made for a busy April schedule in South Australia.
Due to the success of LIV Golf Adelaide from an attendance standpoint as well as its economic impact in South Australia, officials thought the tournament deserved a bigger calendar spotlight to continue its impressive pace.
“In order to achieve growth,” Premier Malinauskas said, “one of the considerations we put our minds to is what could be achieved around the schedule that might give even more uplift than what was set in the past.”
Pushing it back to May was one consideration, but that brought in weather concerns.
Meanwhile, the mid-February slot began looking like a nice fit in the South Australian entertainment calendar. The 25th anniversary of the Santos Tour Down Under cycling competition is scheduled for late January, and Adelaide’s festival season kicks off in late February.
As for the Australian golfing calendar, the Australian PGA is set for November 21-24, and the Australian Open the following week, so no conflicts there.
On the LIV Golf calendar, Adelaide assumes an earlier spot on the schedule, coming immediately after the season-opener in Riyadh. Starting the tournament on Valentine’s Day is a bonus.
“Summer obviously is the traditional time that major golfing events happen on Australian shores,” Premier Malinauskas said. “It would mean that we’re earlier in the LIV schedule, which brings a benefit as well. This is a decision that we’ve made in collaboration with LIV and we’re very grateful for their cooperation in this regard
“It doesn’t mean that the event will be in February every single year from here on in, but it is a shift that we want to give a red-hot go at to see how it performs into the future, particularly given our aspirations to grow this event over the years ahead.”
LIV Golf Commissioner and CEO Greg Norman is ecstatic to see the tournament continue to grow in his native land.
“As an Aussie, I'm proud of how South Australia has embraced LIV Golf to make it one of the top sporting events in the country," Norman said. "Over the past two years, Adelaide has showcased what our League can deliver: a destination event with passionate crowds where world-class team competition, entertainment and culture take center stage.
“It’s been the highlight tournament on our calendar for players and fans, alike, and we can’t wait to return to The Grange in February.”
More than 40% of the ticket purchasers for the 2024 event were from out of state, and 97% of those fans travelled to Adelaide specifically to attend the golf tournament. The direct expenditure of $71.1 million was a 10% increase from 2023.
No wonder Premier Malinauskas and the rest of South Australia are eager to see what LIV Golf Adelaide can achieve during the summer.
“There’s something for everyone at a LIV tournament,” he said, “and doing it in February next year, I think we’ll see a lot of people come to our state, even in more volume from what we saw throughout the course of 2023 and 2024.”