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LIV Golf scouts Australian courses for tournament events as Cameron Smith leaves PGA Tour

A Springfield golf course is among the venues setting its sights on hosting a LIV Golf tournament next year.

Springfield City Group, the developer which owns the Brookwater Golf and Country Club, revealed it had met with LIV golf officials about venues to host a tournament next year.

It comes after Australian golf champion Cameron Smith officially signed with LIV Golf, following weeks of rumours he would leave the PGA Tour.

Australian Marc Leishman, American golfers Harold Varner III and Cameron Tringale, rising Chilean star Joaquin Niemann and India's Anirban Lahiri also announced they would join LIV Golf on Tuesday.

LIV Golf is backed by the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund and led by Australian golfing great Greg Norman, who said the latest signings were a victory.

Springfield City Group's deputy chairman Bob Sharpless told ABC Radio Brisbane's Rebecca Levingston there had been a recent meeting with members of the Liv Golf tournament team, who had been scouting Australia venues.

"We're certainly in the running," Mr Sharpless said.

"I mean, we haven't had any feedback since we met with them several weeks ago — we were certainly told that there is a commitment to have a tournament in Australia in April next year, so that would be incredibly exciting.

"Obviously Greg Norman is very familiar with the Brookwater project given he had a financial interest in it in the early days of the project and was also the designer of the golf course."

Australian Golf Digest associate editor Steve Keipert told ABC Radio Brisbane today that he thought Brookwater Golf Course in Springfield could be a contender.

"I would think if they are looking at a Queensland event, Brookwater would be one of the frontrunners, I think, if they're looking at Brisbane," he said.

"Obviously you've got a couple of options on the Gold Coast as well."

Work needed for shotgun start

Mr Sharpless said three or four hours were spent discussing what would be required for the tournament and how it could be conducted at Brookwater.

"We were told they had visited another three courses in Queensland in addition to Brookwater, they've been to a course in New South Wales and they were about to head off to look at a course in Adelaide," he said.

Mr Sharpless said the other Queensland locations were understood to be Sanctuary Cove, designed by Arnold Palmer, and The Glades and The Grand golf courses, both of which were designed by Norman.

"We've certainly been given an idea of the numbers they were hoping to achieve, so that would involve us doing some works around the course to allow, you know, the capacity of people to move around in a fairly measured way," Mr Sharpless said.

"Their version of the way they want to host them is that there's a lot more areas where people, if you like, stay in one spot and get treated to hospitality and the golfers come through, because it's actually the format of their events as a shotgun start.

"We were told the expectation was about 25,000 per day."

Mr Sharpless said while it was not a concern that there was no onsite accommodation, it may be something the group considered building in the future.

LIV Golf was contacted for comment.

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