THE MODERATOR: Welcome back to LIV Golf Adelaide 2025. We are thrilled to be joined today by the captain of Smash GC, Brooks Koepka, the premier of South Australia and our new CEO, Scott O'Neil. Welcome, everybody.
Premier, we are back for year three of LIV Golf Adelaide, and this year is shaping up to be the biggest event of all time in LIV Golf history. We've seen continued growth year on year with both attendance and the economic impact to South Australia.
Can you tell us how important LIV Golf Adelaide is to South Australia and this market.
PETER MALINAUSKAS: It's a big deal. In that first year, we had high hopes for what LIV would do to our city and our state economically, but we also appreciated it was likely to start from a modest place, given that LIV Golf was very much in its infancy, and then of course year one it shoots the lights out and exceeded everyone's expectations.
Pretty rapidly we evolved our thinking to evolve from we hope this goes well to, right, how do we maximize this opportunity, how do we take that base and turn it into a genuine year-on-year proposition. That's not easy to do when you are starting from a relatively high base in short time.
To see this year more tickets sold than the previous two years and to see our hotels more full and forward sales over 10 percent up, to see more tickets being sold yet maintaining that level of about 40 percent of all tickets being sold to people from either interstate or overseas is something we're very grateful for.
We don't get this opportunity without LIV investing their confidence in the partnership between the South Australian government and themselves, and I think it's been a reciprocally advantageous relationship, and we just want that to continue.
I've had a chance to have a quick look around at some of the infrastructure here that's been set up. There are new elements to it. There is more capacity. The weather is looking good for the weekend.
But the most important thing from my perspective isn't just the crowd numbers or the hotel rooms being full. From my perspective the most important element of all of this is what it does to the awareness of Adelaide in South Australia as a place to do business. We've worked really hard as a government to set ourselves up to be in a strong position with some good foundations, and we can seal a few deals on the back of that fruit of the platform that LIV provides.
There are a lot of people coming to Adelaide this weekend that wouldn't ordinarily come here, from interstate in particular, some serious corporate types, and by the end of the weekend I'll be hoarse after chewing their ear out, but that's the opportunity this platform provides that we're grateful for.
Q. Why do you think South Australia and Australia as a whole has embraced LIV Golf so wholeheartedly?
PETER MALINAUSKAS: The short answer, and hopefully I don't say anything that --
SCOTT O'NEIL: I was going to say the last answer, what he said.
PETER MALINAUSKAS: There are two reasons. One, because Australian golf wasn't getting the recognition that it deserves from investors in the rest of the world. This is a sporting nation, and golf is part of our sporting identity.
It was sort of looked over and ignored. Australian golf fans could only dream of having a Brooks Koepka playing here amongst all of the others. Like it was seen as a fantasy.
LIV Golf gave the opportunity to achieve that. Naturally fans responded.
That's the first reason.
The second reason is the LIV product itself. Beyond the superstars, the feel walking around a LIV event is unique. It's a bit different, and it accords with the egalitarian nature of Australia, that idea that things should be accessible, slightly more relaxed, taking the golf seriously but not taking each other too seriously, not taking ourselves too seriously, that's part of who we are.
When you can get in the proximity of a superstar like Brooks but do it while you're wearing shorts and a beer in your hand and just a bit of music in the background and then when the party starts later on to really throw yourself at it, that's Australia.
It's the opportunity that LIV presented for high-quality professional golf in Australia, tick, but then the product accords with who we are as a country. It's just a beautiful synergy that comes to life.
Q. You've talked about how Australia is a sporting nation and LIV Golf has cemented itself in Australia's sporting calendar in such a short amount of time. Right before us is the Australian Open and then LIV Golf and then the Grand Prix. Is that a testament to what we've been able to accomplish in three short years?
PETER MALINAUSKAS: This is now the pinnacle of Australian sporting events to attend. It is now on people's bucket lists. Once upon a time they'd say, you ask a young teenager what's your sporting bucket list in Australia and you might have an AFL grind final, get to the Australian Open. Well, now LIV Golf is on that list. People want to do it.
But to do that -- there are legacy events that have built a reputation. The Melbourne Cup is another one. That built a reputation over 50 to 100 years. We've done it in three years.
The one thing I'd say is this: We can't take it for granted, not LIV, not the host city, which we hope to be us in the long-term. You can't take it for granted. You've got to earn the right, particularly in an economic environment where costs are going up. You've got to earn the right to say, if you're going to spend your money, do it here. That's where we want to make sure we're investing and evolving, and I think you'll see evidence of that over the course of the next three days.
THE MODERATOR: Scott, welcome to LIV Golf Adelaide, your first time here. We always say that LIV Golf Adelaide is the blueprint for what LIV is going to be eventually all around the world. How important is LIV Golf Adelaide to this schedule, and how much does it align with your vision for the future of LIV Golf?
SCOTT O'NEIL: First off, it's wonderful to be here. For us, it always starts with the golf, always, and we're blessed with the best golfers in the world. We have one of them sitting up here with us, Brooks Koepka. Cam Smith and the Rippers are quite incredible. Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson, it's a who's-who of golf for us.
For us, it always starts with the golf.
When we talk about locations, first off, it has to be a public-private partnership, and in some locations that's really complicated, and here we have extraordinary leadership, a visionary premier, and that's really helpful.
Also having a wonderful golf course and a world-class golf course is a key component in any location we go, and the LIV brand is different and special. It is the kind of new version and modern version of what golf is supposed to be, and here I think is the quintessential example, when you have that incredible blend of world-class golf on a world class course and music and culture and food and the experience and a party hole, and even this year on hole 6, a family hole, because we want this to be a place for everyone. We want everyone to feel comfortable here and welcome here.
I will tell you it's really exciting for me just to sit with the players -- I'm excited to hear what Brooks has to say, but there's a rush in coming here. There is a genuine excitement about playing in Adelaide. While there is incredible excitement all over Australia, as you can imagine, from markets interested, the place we want to be for the long haul is right here in Adelaide.
Q. Scott, we say we're the first truly global golf tour. We are bringing world-class golf to golf-starved markets around the world and that is nowhere better on display than here in Adelaide where we're breaking attendance records year on year. Can you talk about the vision for LIV Golf being the first truly global golf tour?
SCOTT O'NEIL: You don't have to look too far past tennis. I always think about how do you look at other sports as models, and I think the Australian Open here is a good example with tennis. It's a world-class event, and for a moment, the tennis world starts and stops here, and golf seems to be very centered on the United States.
Yet when you look at the golf world and you look at Australia and the UK and Hong Kong and Singapore and all the incredible cities where we're blessed to go play, Riyadh last week, we're taking the game to the world where golf fans around the world want to see the greatest players on the biggest stages.
We feel like that is an opportunity. It's a privilege and a bit of an obligation.
Q. How important is that just to growing the game of golf as a whole?
SCOTT O'NEIL: You know, this game is in great hands. The game is growing. Three and a half million more golfers in '24 than there were in '23, so the game is wonderful. That's not an accident. This is one of the world's great teachers. It teaches you resilience. It teaches you patience. It teaches you consistency and integrity because it's a self-scoring game.
So all those wonderful life lessons you get from golf matched with a sport that's growing, matched in an environment in a place like Adelaide where our fans come from all over the world and all over Australia to come together to have an experience of a lifetime, that's a pretty good fit.
PETER MALINAUSKAS: It teaches you anger management, too.
SCOTT O'NEIL: It sure does.
THE MODERATOR: Brooks, from your perspective, where does LIV Golf Adelaide rank on your list of all of our events? You've been with us from the very beginning. Talk about that.
BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah, I think -- actually I know that I can speak for all the players. This is the one event every year that we look forward to coming back. We've got the most fans, the most energy. That's what LIV Golf is about. Make it fun for the players, make it fun for the fans and families that come out, and I think this event just proves exactly what we've been trying to do year after year.
This is the pinnacle of our events, and hopefully in the future this is the bar that we set.
Q. You are back for year three. What is your favorite memory so far at a LIV Golf Adelaide event?
BROOKS KOEPKA: That one is pretty easy for me. My brother making the hole-in-one. I think that's pretty easy.
It's funny because I practice with him at home quite a bit, especially now that he's back playing again, and it's the one topic I think that's brought up pretty much every time we're together. He still thinks he's the mayor of Adelaide. He still calls himself that. So it's quite fun. We get a good laugh.
I was even joking with him because I think he's off this week, I'm like, dude, you've got to come down, so trying to convince him to come back. It would be a good experience for him. Hopefully he's back here playing in a few years if he plays well enough in the International Series and gets back here or the Promotions Event, which is huge.
Look, what we're doing is super innovative and very cool, and I'm just glad to see it from a player's perspective that it's taken off.
Q. We talked about the iconic moment with Chase which took place on the LIV Golf Watering Hole. There is nothing like that in the world of golf. From a player's perspective again, can you talk about that experience walking through the tunnel with your walk-out song blaring, you walk out to the cheers? What does that experience feel like?
BROOKS KOEPKA: It's incredible. I think it doesn't start just on the Watering Hole. It's the lead-up holes to it.
I think once you walk off 9 green as a player, you can start to hear the music going. You hear the players being announced. You can hear the energy that's going. It affects the whole golf course. So it's not just that one hole, but it affects the whole golf course, and you're anxious just to get there and hopefully hit a good shot. But the excitement when you leave the 11th green, that's what sports are about. There's this iconic moment or this iconic setup that everyone is looking forward to.
As fans, they have that there, and then as the players, once we get there, it's just pure excitement, and you'd just better hit that green. That's all I can say.
Q. Brooks, you've basically won on every tour at every stage all around the world. What's the common denominator that makes a great got that you see at LIV Golf Adelaide?
BROOKS KOEPKA: To me, I think, number one, a good golf course and the fans. The fans are what get us going. You look at any other sport across -- it's amazing to me, you always have a home base or there's home fans that are cheering for you, but golf there's never truly a home base, unlike the Rippers this week, and you can see that's probably why they played so well last year. If there's an excitement or a buzz going on, as a player that gets you excited, and they do a phenomenal job. The fans are incredible here. I think I can speak for every player; that's why there's so much excitement and buzz coming to this place.
Q. Obviously with the announcement of the exemptions into the U.S. Open and the Open Championships, not something you have to think about now as a multiple major winner, but how good is that for the Joaquins and the Talor Gooches of the league to have that in place?
BROOKS KOEPKA: Yeah, this is the first step of many I think we're looking to take. The opportunity is there. I think the organizations around the world, the R&A, the USGA, they're looking at LIV Golf as part of the golf ecosystem now. With that is a huge, huge step forward for us.
Hopefully we have a player that's not exempt that's up there ready to go and gets in another major because all it does is just add value to this league and to each team.
Q. Interested to get your thoughts; not seeing Greg up here at LIV Golf Adelaide. I know Pete had a great time with Greg and planning what this has become. Just interested to see if there's any involvement with Greg in the tournament moving forward, and Scott, a warm welcome, and big shoes to fill.
SCOTT O'NEIL: Just 10 and a halves here for sure. Whenever you take on a new opportunity, you always -- if you're smart and humble enough and earnest enough, you spent quite a bit of time with your predecessor. Mine just happens to be one of the greatest golfers of all time, of which I am not, sadly.
BROOKS KOEPKA: I can attest to that.
SCOTT O'NEIL: We did play last week. I did outdrive you. I had a 200-yard head start. In the pro-ams they put the pros way back and we're up a bit, but it was a glory moment for me.
But nonetheless, Greg is an icon. He is a friend. He is the reason I'm here today. I spent quite a bit of time with him in my 30-day lead-up to this role and every day since engaging, asking questions and learning, and I hope that he is part of LIV forever.
We just had a board meeting last week. He sits on the board, which is another wonderful testament that we can tap into his experience, his leadership, his friendship, and any challenges, too, at the board meeting. I was hoping for a friendly on the other side of the table, but he mixes it up pretty good.
It's quite a gift to have him as part of LIV. I feel like he was the right person at the right time, and I hope I can stand on the shoulders of giants and move the league forward.
I'm very different. I don't come from the golf world, but I do come from the world of sports, American sports, and I'm really proud, humbled and inspired to be able to walk behind him and take this league forward.
PETER MALINAUSKAS: I'll add to that just from the South Australian government's perspective. We're not here doing this in South Australia if not for Greg's vision and leadership. But more than that, also the practice of good judgment. The easiest thing for Greg to have done at the time was to have put this event on the eastern seaboard of Australia in Sydney. That's the orthodox thing to do. And he exercised the judgment to take a risk and put it here in Adelaide, and the rest is history.
To that end, I don't just have a sense of gratitude, I have a hope and an expectation, that to the extent that Greg is able to be involved in the event in the future, that's obviously something we want to embrace, and Scott and I were talking about this earlier, and we're really happy about it. I'm catching up with Greg over the next couple of days, which will be great just to catch up as a mate as much as anything else but also just to talk about ideas and golf more broadly.
I think the thing that I'm aware of, and you forgive me for not wanting to make sure that South Australia puts top of its mind, is there is an Olympics coming to this country in the not-too-distant future. Greg is now on the organizing committee. Greg sees the power of collaboration with government. Obviously the Olympics is going to be centered in Brisbane, but there will be things that happen around outside of that, and Greg's perspective particularly in event management and bold leadership I think is a coup for Brisbane Olympics and the country but more broadly from South Australia's perspective an opportunity to be able to engage in a lasting and ongoing way.
We'd be crazy not to capitalize on that at every moment. So we don't see sort of -- obviously it's been a really smooth transition in LIV and Scott is now the CEO, and we're very grateful for Scott's stewardship as it goes into a growth and new phase, but from the South Australian government's perspective, our relationship with Greg will be enduring, and hopefully he's got a lot more to offer in a different context into the future.
Q. Scott, are you relieved that it won't be a 43-degree day when the tournament starts, and secondly, there any possibility of LIV playing a second event in Australia in the future?
PETER MALINAUSKAS: I'll take that.
SCOTT O'NEIL: From a weather standpoint, I'm always nice and comfortable in the air-conditioning, so I'm more worried about Brooks.
No, it's amazing with the stars we have in this league, they are fierce competitors. Fierce. And they are ridiculously gifted athletes. I wish for a moment that golf fans around the world understood how hard these guys work in the off-season to get themselves ready.
It's quite a privilege just in my short tenure here to recognize how -- these guys are beasts.
A little sun, a little heat, a little wind, a little rain, a little cold. I think they're like the U.S. Postal Service a bit; they just keep on chugging. The only time you'll hear a complaint is when they miss a putt. That's it.
So from my perspective, it's beautiful to be out in the summer season. It's wonderful to feel some sun on my face quite frankly coming from the U.S., and we're thrilled to be here.
Your second question was on a second event. First off, we love the event here, and it's clearly proven itself as an elite golf market. When you show up with superstars, a constellation of stars as we have in this league, but I do feel like an intense pressure and obligation for the markets of interest to bring golf around the world. So at this particular moment we're going to focus on Adelaide.
Q. Premier, we obviously have it until next year, but as it gets bigger, does it get harder to retain?
PETER MALINAUSKAS: Look, we've made no secret of the fact that we understand it's a competitive environment. Part of our frustration is South Australia has a history of going first on an event, building it up to be something magnificent and then other jurisdictions come to try to pinch it off of us. As I said earlier, we're going to earn the right. I can't look Scott in the eye and say, look, you have to bring LIV back to Adelaide just because we've had it before. We have to earn the right to be here. We have to show we're committed to it. We've to show we are invested in it. That's the collaboration. We're not resting on our laurels. We understand there are other jurisdictions that would like this event. I get that. We've just got to work at it.
Q. Scott, you've said that you'll be focusing on Adelaide. So would it take an offer you can't refuse to move it from Adelaide and go to another Australian jurisdiction?
SCOTT O'NEIL: That's a well-phrased question. Our intention is to be back in Adelaide. That's our intention. We have had interest, as you might imagine, given the success of this event. But I started this press conference just by talking about, like, the key elements and ingredients, and you don't have to look too far when you have extraordinary -- I don't mean to make this uncomfortable for you, but extraordinary civic leadership, you have visionary leadership, you have world class golf course, you have a place where our players are comfortable, you have extraordinary restaurants, the hospitality is great, the people are great. I hope that we're here for a very long time. That's the intention.
Q. Scott, just with the new sort of emerging framework agreement between the PIF and the PGA Tour moving forward, I want to know your involvement in that and what do you have to think about as LIV Golf CEO as that progresses?
SCOTT O'NEIL: Sure. So PIF, they're the investor and creator of LIV, okay. PIF is a sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and they are likely to make an investment into PGA Tour Enterprises, a new structure that a collection of U.S. investors invested in.
For us at LIV, we are hoping that that unlocks opportunity. That may unlock opportunity with markets, with courses, with marketing partners, with television networks, with growing the game, with competition opportunities, with new formats.
But we're pretty -- I grew up in New York, if you haven't been able to tell so far by my funny accent, and the state motto is "Excelsior," which means kind of onwards and upwards effectively, and we're very excited about the potential investment with PIF and PGA Tour Enterprises.
But I will tell you, and it's been a short 40 days here, but in the 40 days I've seen a U.S. agreement with FOX, broadcast agreement, I've seen a UK agreement with ITV to get us over the air in the UK. It's the only golf that'll be over the air in the UK. I've seen our first pillar partnership with Madden. I've seen stars extended. I've seen a successful event in Riyadh. I've seen interest from all over the world. We're now broadcast in 100 countries and territories, over 800 million households.
So I see momentum. You don't have to look too far from here to feel like we're going to have the largest event in the history of LIV Golf here, right here in Adelaide.
So from my perspective, we have incredible interest with television broadcast networks, which has been a bit of an achilles heel for us, sponsors, marketing partners as we call them, seems to be interest like the group has never seen before, attendance seems to be something that's going in this trajectory.
So I'm excited about the agreement. I think that right now we are going to the moon and back, and I hope that'll help as an accelerant, but I'm very confident in where we are in this business and the interest we have currently.
Q. Brooks, Jon Rahm recently said that Grange has the greatest bunkers he's seen in his life. How is Grange looking this week? How is it set up? Who are going to be the big players this week?
SCOTT O'NEIL: Brooks is never in the bunker.
BROOKS KOEPKA: I was going to say that, actually. Look, this golf course is in phenomenal shape, some of the purest greens we play all year on LIV, and it's exciting. I know I've said it earlier, the players are excited to get down here to play.
It's a fun event. This golf course is in incredible shape. I actually love the fact it's this hot right now because it might firm this golf course up a little bit, and I think you're really going to see a true Australian golf course test. That's what I believe.
Obviously probably Cam is the favorite. Cam is definitely the fan favorite, so it's hard to go against that. But there's so many guys, so many guys playing well. Jon, Tyrrell is playing phenomenal golf. I don't think he's finished outside the top 5 in his last six events or something like that. There's a lot of guys that are playing well.
It's a big year, Ryder Cup year, so guys are looking to play well on both sides, the European side, our side in the States, and it's just there's a lot to play for this season. There's a lot of hungry guys.
SCOTT O'NEIL: Do you mind adding something about some of the young talent? That's the thing that blew me away in Riyadh.
BROOKS KOEPKA: Look, I've said it for years. It's amazing to me these guys are as young as 20 --
SCOTT O'NEIL: Caleb is 20.
BROOKS KOEPKA: -- to I think the oldest rookie may be 24. When they come out of either college or they're in this 20 to 24 range, I've never seen every generation that just comes out, it's amazing how ready they are to compete and win, and I think it's so impressive because I know where I was myself at 20, 24. I was just trying to figure it out and understand the game, and I don't really think until 26, 27 you start to kind of gather all that information and really progress where you believe you can win.
In years before it was almost 30 to 40 was your years to make hay and go. These kids come out younger and younger, and they're ready to not just compete but they're ready to actually win. That's the huge difference. You're starting to see it out here with a bunch of the younger guys coming, and hopefully in two, three, four more years we've got the next group of superstars lined up ready to go.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports