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LIV, THE EXPERIENCE

BY Davin Sgargetta


It’s hard not to think of Happy Gilmore when standing among the hoards gathered at LivGolf’s Party Hole in Adelaide — the 12th at the Grange Golf Club. Almost fully enclosed by grandstands, the par 3 was teeming with celebrities, influencers and beverages.

 

The music was loud, the fans at times even louder, as golf’s biggest names sent balls hurtling towards the putting green in an environment it’s fair to say they’re still acclimatising to. 

 

I may not have seen anyone doing the bull dance, but there were plenty of people feeling the flow and working it. LivGolf is an experience.

The arranged marriage of a sport steeped in tradition, pomp and order, and a festival atmosphere reminiscent of the Big Day Out, LivGolf somehow manages to pull it all off.

 

Roman numerals for 54, LIV represents the number of holes played across three days of action. It also happens to be the number of players teeing off at each event as well.

A shotgun start launches every round, meaning there’s action for fans on each hole from the get-go. Every player plays every hole. There is no missing cuts, although there is the occasional bruised head, with Lucas Herbert’s caddie Nick Pugh taking a bottle to the back of the scone in Adelaide, as inebriated fans got a little too raucous as the shadows grew long on the Saturday.

 

He made a quick recovery by all accounts, but it was certainly a reminder that not only can things can get out of hand quickly at events like this, but also that this is not golf as we’ve come to know it, and therefore is unlikely to be every golf fan’s cup of tea.

 

Although there is music blaring across the 18 holes, the volume dips and the vibe does shift as you move around the course, to something more reminiscent of golf in the traditional sense. Stewards even have ‘shoosh’ signs with them out on the fairways — something that was likely a tougher sell later in the day as fans grew, let’s say, more boisterous.   

 

The golfers all get around in roughly the same amount of time, keeping play to a manageable timeframe each day, which opens the event up to a more exciting atmosphere, and arguably a more broadcast friendly product.   

 

But as Senior Vice President of Production James Watson explained to us at the event, the shotgun start comes with some technical challenges. It means cameras on every hole, capturing all of the action, all of the time.

 

They’re running 60-odd cameras across the course including drones, constantly beaming vision back to the production control centre, as producers and post-production staff work tirelessly to manage the broadcast product. There are a range of graphic elements being updated in real time across both individual and team-based performances. This gives viewers at home, at the venue and online constant and up-to-date leader boards and key stats. It’s a monumental undertaking and an impressive thing to witness live.

Further to that, there are a range of exciting new technologies being explored and implemented, giving viewers more choice, more information and an overall more engaging viewing experience.

 

There’s more to play for than individual accolades for players. Each golfer suits up in one of 13 teams of four, with a couple of reserve players getting out on course to make up the numbers.   

 

At the end of each event, both individual and team winners are crowned, and this year’s Adelaide event could not have gone better for fans if it were scripted. Local lads Ripper GC clinched victory in an exciting playoff over the South Africans, Stinger GC.

 

After surviving the first play-off hole when things looked dicey, Cam Smith and Marc Leishman held their nerve on the second after Luis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester both found the sand. A par and bogey was all that was needed from the Aussies to seal the win, sending the crowd into raptures. 

 

The reality is, for all the controversy surrounding its launch and the stand-off between golf’s past and its potential future, LivGolf offers a very different product to the usual PGA Tour event. I imagine from a marketing standpoint, there may be crossover in the game itself, but everything around it is different, and one would imagine, attracts a distinct corner of the market. And by the size of the crowds at the Aussie event, the corner is large.

As has been the yearning for some time from many fans of the game, LivGolf is attracting a new, young and vibrant fanbase to the sport. It no doubt has had its teething issues, and is likely to be ironing out the creases as they go — projectiles from the crowd being one of them.

 

I just can’t see the PGA even wanting to run an event like this — despite all of its upside — as it simply does not mesh with its existing brand. And as these two very distinct iterations of the game diverge, there is certainly room for both. In a nutshell, both sides of the sport can and probably should coexist.     

 

Play it as it lies, and let’s see where the game goes from here.   

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