Louisiana officials defend LIV Golf subsidy, say event will bring tourists, global exposure

NEW ORLEANS – Gov. Jeff Landry defended the state’s decision to spend $7 million to bring a Saudi Arabia-owned LIV Golf League event to New Orleans next summer. 

The governor announced Wednesday the tournament will take place June 26-28 at Bayou Oaks golf course at New Orleans City Park. It’s a time of year when New Orleans struggles to attract major events because of the high temperatures and humidity. 

“We wanted to try to get something in the city during the summertime,” Landry said in an interview with reporters after his announcement. “We want New Orleans to be a city where people come January to December.”

The tournament will be broadcast internationally, putting Louisiana in front of a global audience, Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois said in an interview. Some of LIV Golf’s largest television audiences are in Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom – all places the state is targeting for business deals.

“It brings this tournament not only to the United States but around the world as well, so it’s just a great opportunity,” the governor said. 

Landry, Bourgeois and several other New Orleans-area officials gathered at City Park for a flashy, official coming out party for the tournament. It included a DJ, brass band, sparklers and a professional wrestling-style hype man for the governor and LIV Golf representatives.

Bubba Watson, a Pensacola, Florida, native who is one of the biggest stars on the LIV Golf tour, was also in attendance.

The tour, which launched a competitor to the PGA Tour in 2022, remains controversial.

Its owner is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, one of the richest sovereign wealth funds in the world with nearly $1 trillion in assets. The money is overseen by Saudi Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a strongman who has been accused of human rights abuses. 

 U.S. intelligence officials concluded the Prince Mohammed was responsible for the death of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had criticized the Saudi leader in columns for The Washington Post. Saudi officials killed Khashoggi in 2018, while he was visiting the Saudi consulate in Turkey to get documents for his upcoming marriage.

Landry largely dismissed concerns about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record this week, saying making deals with Saudi officials is nothing new.

“I think that the Saudis have been doing business with Louisiana for quite some time. God knows how much oil they have sent our refineries,” Landry said. “It’s sort of like, why are we worried?” 

There have also been questions about whether Louisiana should be paying LIV Golf millions of dollars, when the tour has financial resources that dwarf the state’s.

When LIV Golf debuted three years ago, Saudi Arabia’s leadership offered pro golfers far larger sums of money than the PGA Tour, including multimillion-dollar signing bonuses.

Of the $7 million Louisiana is putting toward the event, $2 million will go toward upgrading the public Bayou Oaks course, and the remaining $5 million will go to LIV Golf as a hosting fee. International golf legend Greg Norman will lead the redesign of the course layout for the event.

“This gives us an opportunity to give City Park a facelift, right, and make it great again,” Landry said.  

Louisiana’s $7 million for the LIV Golf tournament comes from the state’s major events incentive fund, which provides public dollars for large tourist-driven events. In the past, the fund has been used to lure the Super Bowl, Essence Festival and NCAA Final Four for men’s basketball to Louisiana.

Other events getting money from the fund in the state budget for the year that started July 1 include the U.S. Bowling Congress Tournament ($5 million), an Ultimate Fighting Championship event ($1.5 million), the 2026 Southeastern Conference Gymnastics Championship ($750,000), the U.S. Gymnastics National Championships ($750,000), the Barksdale Defenders of Liberty Air Show ($500,000) and the State Fair of Louisiana ($100,000). 

Bourgeois said the state may be giving LIV Golf $5 million, but the golf tour is putting up far more money for the tournament – somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 million to $60 million for this one stop alone. 

State officials have declined to say how many people they think the tournament will bring to New Orleans, but Bourgeois said LIV Golf events in other markets have attracted between 40,000 and 60,000 spectators.

There’s also the question of whether fans will be particularly interested in standing outside in the heat in New Orleans in late June. Bourgeois and Landry are both optimistic that spectators will come to watch golf despite the weather, since other LIV Golf events in other hot climates were successful this year. 

“LIV just played in Singapore and I don’t think it gets hotter than Singapore,” Landry said. “Whether we have to adjust the dates after this go around, we’ll see.” 

Bourgeois said LIV Golf is excited about staging an event in New Orleans because the golf course is in the heart of the city. In other U.S. cities that have hosted LIV events, the golf course is typically further removed from tourist attractions.

Landry also dismissed questions about the LIV Golf tournament competing with the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, a decades-old PGA Tour event held each spring at the TPC Louisiana golf course in Avondale. 

The governor said he believes PGA and LIV events appeal to different audiences. PGA tournaments tend to be restrained, while LIV incorporates live music and other spectacles to give their events more of a party atmosphere, he said. 

“That’s why I love LIV Golf. There are no quiet signs. It’s a party,” said Landry, who admitted he doesn’t play the sport, in part because he is “not a quiet person.”

“You got to be quiet at Zurich. You don’t have to be quiet at LIV,” he said in an interview.