LIV Adelaide lived up to hype with first team playoff, Brendan Steele taking home solo prize

With over 94,000 attending the Grange Golf Course (over three days), LIV Adelaide is probably the league’s most successful event. As captain of Ripper GC, Cam Smith was determined to bring home the team win in front of very vocally partisan spectators. He played the 18th for the two playoffs along with teammate Marc Leishman against South African Stinger GC teammates Louis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester, who had just won LIV Miami a few weeks ago.

“This is unreal,” said Smith afterwards, while draped in an Australian flag alongside his Ripper teammates Leishman, Matt Jones and Lucas Herbert. “It’s a dream come true for us.”

It was also a dream for Brendan Steele, who let six birdies fly off his putter, for a 4-under 68 finish for the day and a total 18-under final score. He was the first from Captain Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers GC team to win an LIV title. As expected, Steele celebrated with the famous “shoey.”

“Really surreal,” said Steele afterward about his first win in seven years. “I’m pretty overwhelmed, but to win this event is really special. I can't say enough good things about the fans and the golf course and the whole experience this week.”

Just behind him was Oosthuizen, who finished at 17-under. A five-man tie for third included Oosthuizen’s Stinger teammates Burmester (67) and Charl Schwartzel (64), HyFlyers’ Andy Ogletree (65), Legion XIII Captain Jon Rahm (64) and Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann (66), who has claimed two LIV titles this year at Mayakoba and Jeddah.

Steele may have hit a bump at the start of the day, with a bogey on hole No. 3, but the 41-year-old more than made up for it two holes later with a string of stunning birdies at Holes 5-9. A bogey on the 11th stalled his momentum, but he managed to cancel that out with his sixth birdie for the day on the 13th.

Six-time major winner and teammate Mickelson was among the first to give Steele a congratulatory hug after his successful finish at the 18th.

“He's the reason that I'm here and the reason that I'm improving,” Steele said, with a nod to Mickelson’s success in his later years (oldest major winner at the PGA in 2021). “To be honest, I'm 41 years old and I'm getting better, and it's mostly because of him.”

LIV Adelaide once again proved to be the pinnacle event on the LIV calendar, setting a new record of attendance for the golf league. With undeniably large crowds following the players and exhibiting the kind of rowdy behavior reminiscent of the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour, the event continued to not disappoint LIV fans.

"You couldn’t have staged a better place to do the first playoff,” said Oosthuizen afterward, according to LIV. “Probably couldn’t script it better with the Rippers winning [on home soil]. We had chances."

Bringing the tournament to international destinations like Australia — which doesn’t see much competitive golf — has been one of LIV’s biggest selling points.

“This week has far exceeded my vision for what was ahead,” Smith said, via LIV. “I think I always knew internally that Australia would really embrace LIV with the culture, with the music, with the entertainment, everything that goes on around it. I always felt like this was the place where it was going to make it big, and how it's been the last couple of years has been just insane.

“Last year I said, I'm biased, this is the best tournament I've ever played. I think this year it's done it again.”

Despite the controversial rift with the PGA Tour, now in possible extended merger negotiations, and the arguably unfair ruling by the OWGR, LIV Adelaide continues to serve as an example of the team league’s relevance on the calendar.

The next LIV event will take place at the Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore beginning May 3.