The LIV Golf League has ended its second full season by winning a couple of trophies at the World Golf Awards.
Days after Talor Gooch won the $18 million top prize for triumphing in LIV Golf's individual season-long competition and Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC scooped the team trophy - as well as a share of $14 million - there was more to celebrate for those who joined the breakaway tour.
At the 10th annual WGA - held in Abu Dhabi - the controversial start-up fended off competition from the likes of the Ryder Cup, Solheim Cup, and all Major championships on both the men’s and women’s side of the game to land two pieces of silverware.
The 54-hole League claimed the title of World’s Best Golf Innovation as a result of its unique format and impressive array of graphics for TV and online viewers, while it also landed the World’s Best Golf Event of the Year crown following the highly-successful inaugural LIV Golf Adelaide event.
🏆 We’re proud to announce that LIV Golf has received multiple honors at the 2023 @WorldGolfAwards ⛳️ World’s Best Golf Event of the Year: LIV Golf Adelaide 🏌️♂️ World’s Best Golf Innovation🙌 Thank you to the World Golf Awards and congratulations to all award winners… pic.twitter.com/K7ZLmKLoCAOctober 24, 2023
After the Australian tournament’s debut in April, several players came away with glowing references and shared just how impressive they felt LIV Golf Adelaide really was.
4 Aces’ Peter Uihlein said: “We've done 12 events, and you get this kind of atmosphere on your 12th one? Think about when this is like your 40th or 50th, how much bigger and how much more this will grow. I think people lose sight of that a little bit. This is literally the 12th event. The sky's the limit.”
Meanwhile, teammate Pat Perez was equally enthusiastic. He said: “I had a blast. It was an unbelievable event. That many people out here screaming and having fun, you could just see how this LIV thing is just really exploding.”
Following the event which saw a hole-in-one by Chase Koepka at the par-three 12th - dubbed ‘The Watering Hole’, a similar scene to the 16th at the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour - Ripper GC’s Marc Leishman insisted the tournament had a “real Major feel to it.”
At the time, he said: “This was on a different level. This was everything like Carlos [Ortiz] was saying today, that this had a real Major feel to it, even more than some Majors, and I feel the same way.
Australian Cameron Smith at LIV Golf Adelaide
“I think I expected it to be huge, somewhat like this, but I was saying this morning, I've had chances to win Majors - albeit not in Australia. But to have the home crowds like that, that was a highlight of my golfing career, along with all my wins.”
LIV Golf Adelaide had reportedly been considered as the starting event for the 2024 campaign, but those plans are said to have been put on hold as Sports Illustrated claimed Mayakoba in Mexico will take that role instead.
In some of the other awards at the WGA, the World’s Best Golf Course 2023 was presented to the Serapong Course at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore, the World’s Best Golf Club Brand was won by Titleist, and the World’s Best Golf TV Channel was claimed by NBC Golf Channel.
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