It was on the balcony above the 18th green of Mt Broughton in the NSW Southern Highlands when the writer arched an eyebrow and asked the former professional player and television analyst, Ewan Porter, his thoughts on LIV Golf.

Porter had earlier offered that he'd been "slapped on the wrist" and "told to keep my mouth shut" by an official within the PGA Tour after Porter had done something as innocuous as “Like” a Linkedin post that was positive about LIV Golf.

That's how precious the establishment has been in trying to protect its monopoly against the cashed-up rebel forces. There's been fractious times at Ridgemont High.

Today, though, Porter is an independent contractor and free thinker who says he's tell you how he sees it. And there on the balcony he said of LIV Golf: "I see a place for LIV. I think everyone at LIV thought they’d be ahead of where they are now; they probably expected to have generated more eyeballs, maybe made a little more money around the team aspects of it."

On the dud ratings, Porter added: "I know a couple of people involved in LIV, not necessarily players, who have said it does feel like an exhibition. It just doesn’t feel [to these people] like proper tournament golf.

"I do hope they find their place and that the PGA Tour remains the biggest tour in the world. Being involved with junior golf, that’s where young players still aspire to be."

An onwards he rolled, with candid opinions on the no-longer-dual-gender Australian Open, his ideas to bring PGA Tour events to Australia, and, after giving up professional golf, finding himself while "finding himself" when painting the walls of a brewery in Montana, all this and more in our June issue, which is another ripper.

Now. What is clear is this: what Porter describes as the unfiltered opinion of some within LIV Golf is mirrored by consumers whose viewing numbers can be counted in the hundreds … of thousands, you facetious thing, it’s not going that poorly.

But it’s hardly illuminating the night skies of Las Vegas, either.

A couple of Sundays ago, according to Golf.com, while the Zurich Classic, a teams event, had a rain delay and technical difficulties, it still amassed 1.65 million viewers. Meanwhile in Mexico, Joaquin Niemann's victory could attract just 110,000 viewers.

How come? Few reasons.

One issue is that LIV feels like an adjunct competition to the “real”, "official" ones. The established tours have legacy and gravitas. Doesn’t matter that the Hainan Classic has been around five minutes, or that its tour is like second division to the PGA Tour (which owns 60 percent of it). The European tour has status by dint of having been around since 1972 and because it’s played host to many one-named champions of golf – Seve, Sharky, Rory, Nick. 

LIV Golf, conversely, feels confected, invented. Its commentators are so relentlessly upbeat that they’d get a gig on the LEGO Movie pronouncing that everything is awesome. Which is a shame. I don’t think they have to.

LIV Golf has established itself in “world golf” without being part of the establishment, and will continue to. It will grow. As the Mujahideen said of the Russians after they invaded Afghanistan in 1979 which led to a decade-long conflict, they have the watches, we have the time.

Don’t know if that analogy quite works in this context. But let's run with it anyway.

Time? Luckily, for anyone on the LIV Golf bandwagon and gravy train, the Saudis will not be running out of money until someone less addicted to Ketamine starts selling affordable electric cars with 1000km range and which take the same time to charges as pumping your Mazda CX-9 with a hundred bucks of premium unleaded.

So, set your watches for 2036, when the game's great statesman, billionaire and philanthropist, Sir Rory McIlroy, leads Boston Common to victory in LIV Brisbane under the floodlights of Royal Queensland.

PLUS...

Cleary: If LIV Golf so wows Adelaide, why's it so 'meh' on TV?

The tourism industry loves it, the South Australian premier loves it, and the sports fans of Australia have voted with their feet. For the last two years the good burghers of the World Golf Awards have declared LIV Adelaide the best tournament in the world. It's passing odd, then, that LIV Golf remains a bit of a dud on television.

Anyway. LIV Golf does have world class, one-name players ripping off world class golf. Bryson, Smithy, DJ, Brooks. Throw in Joaquin. Throw in Sergio, Henrik, Louis. Jon Rahm plays in the LIV Golf league, he's as good, on his day, as anyone in the wooooorrrrrld.

And yet, onlookers - and, unless Porter is telling porkies (he is not), in-lookers - can’t shake the feeling that LIV's players have already been paid a stupendous amount of money, and that they’re just out there, effectively, showing off. Exhibiting their skills in a context-free environment.

Of course, it’s more nuanced than that. There are trophies and ever-more money, and a sense of being pioneers, and creating new worlds.

But there are great dollops of truth in the "exhibition" thing, too.

Another area in which PGA Tour and DP World Tour, even Asian Tour, has it over LIV Golf is that, in a crowded sports-consumption market, television viewers don’t necessarily need to know schedules. They don't need to know what is on when. They just know that it is.

Every Friday morning in Australia, turn on the Fox box, there’s the first round of the generic tournament named after the golf legend and/or insurance company. Come Monday, same thing – turn it on, watch it go down, head off to work.

So, maybe, more is more. You wouldn’t think so, but there it (maybe) is. 


The ease of just turning on the television to watch “the golf” is what’s trumping LIV Golf, which has struggled for a toe-hold on both what our American chums call “cable” television and our own “terrestrial” television, at least as represented by one of Channel Seven’s digital offerings, of which there appear to be 27.

LIV Golf is on Fox Sports in the USA, and that’s a pretty big fillip for them, even if the PGA Tour attracts 15 times the audience.

In Australia, though, you’ve got to go hunting for it. It’s like rugby union, which is on Stan, which may not be the stupidest name for a TV channel but is comfortably top-three. Rugby’s also on Channel Nine which owns the rights and shows Test matches, and if you’re a rugby fan, you’ll know that.

For the rest of the greater Australian casual sports-watching public, however, those who’ll scroll up and down the channels until something pops up, they may not know that, or care.

PLUS...

Cleary: If nobody cares about LIV Golf, why do so many people care?

The man on talkback radio was adamant: it’s party golf. It’s an exhibition. It isn’t real golf. The punters on Facebook agree: no legacy, no history, no value. And the kicker, uttered without irony, without reading this yarn: nobody cares.

Fact is, Rupert Murdoch owns much of sport in Australia, and if you want to be relevant – read: on the telly – you need to be on Fox Sports or Kayo where there’s on remote to rule them all.

LIV, though, is on Seven Plus, or Mate or something, on days you don’t know. The schedule is opaque. It's marketed sparsely in our popular press.

You can dig it up, or dig highlights up, on YouTube and what have you. Their social media teams chop out a heap of bite-sized “content” and maybe that’s how the kids are consuming their golf in these attention-span-challenged times, and thus that’s how Ripper GC can sell stiff-billed hats and pricey T-shirts and stubby holders.

For a read of Ewan Porter's exciting and candid Q&A, not to mention features and columns by award-winning writers, subscribe to our crackerjack journal, or get out to a "news agent" from Thursday May 15 to pick up our June issue. Because, while we might easily be described as biased - because we are - the glossy, hard copy of Golf Australia magazine represents glorious value, because, in these days of instantly gratifying but fleeting bite-sized swipe-rights, is full of long-form feature writing, the gratifying and enjoyable "slow food" of our modern media.