LIV Golf pro: “You’ll hear guys talk about it in press conferences, and they aren’t lying”
LIV Golf pro Lucas Herbert says more and more players are realising that travelling to Australia is ‘not that bad’ since they joined the breakaway tour.
The country is sports mad and has produced a number of quality players over the years.
But convincing the elite men’s players to make the long-haul flight has proven to be extremely difficult.
It’s fair to say the Australian Open does not hold the same prestige that it carried in Jack Nicklaus‘ pomp.
But LIV, Herbert contends, is changing some former PGA Tour players’ thoughts.
“The ability to get down to Australia to play one or two events becomes a lot more reasonable for them,” Herbert told Yahoo Sport.
“Guys want to win the Australian Open, I think that that event carries a lot of prestige with it.
“You’ll hear guys talk about it in in press conferences, and they aren’t lying.
“But when the priorities come down to it, I just think it’s hard to justify for them when they’re playing a full schedule to come down.
“So I think with a lighter schedule, guys have got more of a chance to come down.”
Herbert was probably referring to the likes of Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.
Rahm claimed before the 2024 Masters the established tours should’ve made more effort to bring golf to Australia.
Although it was pointed out that he never teed it up in the Australian Open, Australian Masters or Australian PGA Championship.
“I think with LIV as well, seeing the ability to travel throughout the world and it not being as hard as maybe some guys think,” Herbert continued.
“The Americans aren’t known for getting on a long flight and being patient enough to sit on there for 15, 16 hours straight.
“So a few of them doing that in the last couple of years with LIV and seeing that it’s not that bad, and when you do finally land, it’s a pretty awesome experience out in Australia.
“I do think we’ve got a great chance to get some more players down and ultimately give the Aussie public much stronger field in our events and feel like we’re more connected to the golf world.
“We can feel like we’re a long way away on a very lonely island.”
Credit: Matt Turner/LIV Golf media hub
Elsewhere, Herbert contended that he believes the PGA Tour and LIV’s backers are still ‘pushing’ for a deal.
All has gone quiet on that front and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan appeared to indicate little progress has been made between the parties in recent months.
Herbert is probably more desperate than others for an agreement to be made.
He has fallen to 146th in the world rankings and is frozen out of the majors unless he takes to qualifying.
Herbert, like other LIV ‘rebels’, wants a direct pathway into the big four events from the league.
In other LIV news, the circuit has just announced the first part of their 2025 schedule.
All of their stops clash with PGA Tour events.
Read more about that here.
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