The Comprehensive Case for Elevating LIV Golf Adelaide to Major Championship Status
Making the case that LIV Golf Adelaide should be golf’s 5th major championship, not the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
LIV Golf Riyadh
The first event of the 2026 LIV Golf season has concluded and Elvis Smylie has taken the world by storm. The 23-year-old joined Cam Smith’s Ripper GC this season, replacing Matt Jones, and has come out and won his first event. Aside from Charl Schwartzel, who won the inaugural LIV Golf event, Elvis joins the now relegated Henrik Stenson in being the only players to have won their first ever LIV Golf events. Henrik won his inaugural event in Bedminster in 2022, and now Elvis Smylie has won the Riyadh event in 2026.
Smylie wasn’t the only newcomer to have a strong showing in their first event as the newest member of 4 Aces GC, Thomas Detry, finished in solo 7th, captain of Korean Golf Club Ben An finished tied for 9th, and all five wild card players finished in the top half of the field.
On the team front, Ripper GC claimed the first event of the season, largely on the back of Elvis Smylie and Lucas Herbert, who finished tied for 9th place after being near the bottom of the leaderboard through one round. Joaquin Niemann’s Torque GC finished three shots behind Ripper GC and rounding out the podium was Dustin Johnson’s 4 Aces GC, who played with subsitute Miguel Tabuena after the short-notice departure of Patrick Reed.
Smylie and Ripper GC’s Triumph
Elvis Smylie entered the final round in a tie for the lead with Peter Uihlein, but basically didn’t miss a shot all day. Though he’d only won by a single shot over Jon Rahm at the end of the day, Rahm’s four consecutive birdies on the last four holes made it look much closer than it really was. Though he did have to hole a nervy par putt on the last, his lead was 2-3 shots for the majority of the back nine. Rahm’s bogey free 63 in the final round was the lowest round of the tournament, but ultimately not enough to catch Smylie.
Smylie described his win as “a dream come true”. He continued “I really didn’t know what to expect this week. Playing at night is obviously a whole different ballgame out here. I wanted to come out here and make a statement. I wanted to prove that I’m one of the best out here, and I feel like I’ve done that. It’s only up from here.
Make a statement he did. At just 23 years old the newest member of the all Australian team cements himself as a true contender in this league. Though Smylie led the field in driving accuracy this week, he thinks his secret weapon out there is his putting. He’ll jump into the top 80 or so on the Official World Golf Rankings and give both himself and his team a nice lead in the standings heading into their hometown event in Adelaide.
Smylie’s captain, Cam Smith, said of his performance “I knew he was going to come out here and do some pretty great things. The win on the debut is pretty great. Probably really great. I probably wasn’t expecting that, but no, super proud of him”.
Cam expanded on the potential that he believes Smylie has, “I genuinely think he can be the best golfer in the world. He’s got all the tools of the trade. He just needs to keep doing what he’s doing and knuckle down. He’s got the mentality. He showed it out there today. He’s got the grit. He’s a Queenslander, so that comes with it. Cam also remarked that Smylie’s “still got a lot of improving to go, which is pretty scary, really, for the rest of us, because he waxed us this week”.
The other standout performance that helped Ripper GC to their first win of the season was that from Lucas Herbert. Herbert was tied for last place after struggling through the first round and posting a 75. From that moment on, nobody would play better golf than he. He’d shoot -20 over the next three rounds and climb his way inside the top 10. He said of his performance, “Super proud of the way I came back after a horrible first round there. Very happy to make the cut, finishing in the top 10” he continued “I think about halfway through the second round, I said to Pughey (his caddy), my goal for the week is top 10. I really feel like if I knuckled down and hit good shots, that was an achievable goal.”
Halfway through the final round, he’d find himself tied for 10th, “I saw my name flash up at tied 10th, and it felt — that felt really, really nice to actually have gotten there.” Lucas continued “I’m stoked the way I finished the week, and I’m going to take a lot of positives of the last three rounds into next week and the rest of the season.”
Ripper GC now heads to their hometown event in Adelaide where they’ll be looking to complete the sweep of the first two events of the 2026 season.
The Broadcast
In addition to a slew of new names on both the individual and team leaderboard, the start of the 2026 season came with a lot of change to the broadcast.
On the left here is the old styling, on the right the new.
The overall look of the broadcast has changed completely. Gone are the full length pylon that displayed both the individual and team leaderboard throughout the entirety of the event, gone are the bright, contrasting team colors, and gone is the team leaderboard (most of the time).
These changes seem to be geared towards creating a streamlined and more modern aesthetic, something that they’ve undoubtedly accomplished, but it’s come with mixed feedback from viewers. Many feel that the team event fell too far into the background, that many opportunities to highlight important team storylines were missed, and it was often tough to differentiate which teams were making moves on the leaderboard.
Having taken some time to digest the overall viewing experience, I find myself agreeing with these critiques. The broadcast appears to be committed to showing either the team or individual leaderboard at any given time. There were numerous moments throughout both the weekend and the final round that felt like pivotal moments in the team event that were missed due to the focus on the individual leaderboard.
Adding in the context that three of the franchises rebranded to lean into their regional identities, there seems to be an internal struggle within LIV Golf. Do they want these teams to develop their identities based on the regions, or do they want the team event to be something to fall back on in moments where the broadcast isn’t filled with action?
I think the majority of the existing fanbase would prefer the former, lean into the teams and develop the fan communities around them. That way when the team event has a true opportunity to shine, the fans are already engaged in it. There’s plenty of room on the screen to have both leaderboards, there’s plenty of time in the broadcast to highlight storylines from both, and I believe that’s the best path forward.
The Technology
It’s becoming a bit of a tradition that the first LIV Golf event of the season is riddled with tech issues. This certainly isn’t a way of making it sound at all acceptable, or embracing it, but it’s happened a few years in a row now. This year users were met with struggles like having to repeatedly log in on the website, the streams refreshing sporadically, a spattering of audio issues, and the Any Shot Any Time features only partially working.
I’ve got two thoughts on this:
- This simply shouldn’t be happening every year, I know that stress testing is only possible to a certain extent, but some of these features don’t necessarily require that. It almost feels as if these things aren’t really tested at all. Not that I think narrative matters, because it’s often not aligned with reality, but there will undoubtedly be a large number of people making judgements based on how the first event goes, so it needs to go well.
- A lot of the issues were fixed before the weekend round, which is a good sign. In prior years it’s taken longer, so it’s good to see that they understand how important the viewing experience is to the fans and were quick to rectify some of this. They still shouldn’t keep happening every single year.
Hoping that all of this is sorted out as we head into one of the biggest events of the season.
The First Major Event of the LIV Golf Season Is Here
LIV Golf heads straight into the first back to back of the season as they set up to tee off at The Grange Golf Club in Adelaide. The home of the famous Chase Koepka hole in one that set the Watering Hole on fire. Last year, Patrick Reed repeated that feat.
With Ripper GC completing the clean sweep in Riyadh, not only will they be the overwhelming fan favorites, they’ll be one of the betting favorites. I’m loving Lucas Herbert’s chances this week, he’s got as much momentum as anybody in the field.
There’s so many cool memories for LIV Golf at The Grange, so it’ll be sad to see it go after t his year. Next year the event will be held at Kooyonga Golf Club, and then eventually moved to North Adelaide Golf Course in subsequent years. This course has hosted the exciting team playoff between Stinger and Ripper as well as some awesome moments on the Watering Hole. The way the locals have not only embraced the event, but Cam Smith’s Ripper GC creates for an awesome viewing experience and is always one of the most exciting events of the season.
Talor Gooch, now a four time winner on LIV Golf, won his first at The Grange.
“Yeah, this event will always hold a special place in my heart. It was my first win out here on LIV. For all of us players that have been here from the beginning, this is kind of the event that we feel kind of really kicked us off and kind of shot us in a really good direction.Obviously the fans are incredible. The tournament is incredible. The golf course is always in incredible condition.It's always great to be back here. A little bit bittersweet that this is the last time we'll be here at this course, so hopefully we can end with some good memories.”
He’ll be looking to secure his fifth win and his first as a team captain after a disappointing final round last week that saw him fall from solo 3rd entering the round, to outside of the top 10 by the end of the night.
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