LIV Golf Provides Summer season 2026 Event in New Orleans at Bayou Oaks Course

The LIV Golf League has added a summer time match in New Orleans for 2026 after Louisiana agreed to pay the Saudi-backed tour $5 million and spend an extra $2.2 million on enhancements to the Bayou Oaks course in Metropolis Park.

“What an unbelievable alternative to announce this on the Twentieth-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,” Gov. Jeff Landry stated at an announcement alongside LIV Golf officers and LIV participant Bubba Watson.

New Orleans already has a long-running PGA Tour cease with the Zurich Basic at TPC Louisiana. Watson — who grew up about three hours away in Pensacola, Florida — received the Zurich in 2011 and hailed his alternative to play professionally in New Orleans once more.

“I am from the Gulf Coast and that is half my house,” Watson stated, drawing laughs when he joked about attending many New Orleans Pelicans video games desirous to see often-injured NBA star Zion Williamson play. “I nonetheless hope for that day.”

Watson sounded unconcerned in regards to the match dates in late June, when warmth advisories and thunderstorms are widespread. June additionally falls inside hurricane season, albeit nearer to the start. The Zurich often takes place in April.

“That is the primary 12 months of it, so the date can all the time be modified if it does come right here a number of years,” Watson stated. “It is going to be sizzling in plenty of locations in the summertime. … I’ve grown up within the South; I learn about warmth. We simply put together for it.”

This season, a LIV Golf match was held in Dallas in late June, when daytime temperatures hovered round 90 levels.

“We’re going to strive it out, after which we’ll see,” Landry stated. “Whether or not we have got to regulate the dates after this go-around, we’ll see, however my goal is to have this be LIV’s house.”

Louisiana this 12 months supplied financial improvement funding of about $650,000 for advertising and operations to the Zurich Basic. TPC Louisiana additionally periodically receives state subsidies for course and facility enhancements.

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil declined to get into specifics about how the $5 million Louisiana is paying to host an occasion compares to the quantity of public funding for occasions held elsewhere.

“All of the markets are distinctive,” O’Neil stated. “All of them include their distinctive challenges and alternatives.”

Organizers stated the occasion is anticipated so as to add about $40 million in financial exercise to the native financial system.

Landry stated the New Orleans settlement “offers us a possibility to take a position” within the course and the over-170-year-old, 1,300-acre Metropolis Park — of the most important city parks in the US.

“This can be a public piece of property,” Landry stated. “This space wants revitalization.”

Landry doesn’t play golf and stated he usually has not attended skilled tournaments, partially as a result of followers are sometimes anticipated to be quiet. LIV encourages a livelier fan expertise at most tournaments than its rival PGA Tour.

“That’s simply not me,” Landry stated. “That’s why I like LIV Golf. No ‘quiet’ indicators. It’s a celebration.”

Landry dismissed issues about whether or not New Orleans, which has a metro-area inhabitants of simply greater than 1 million and few company headquarters, may adequately assist each a PGA Tour and LIV Golf occasion.

“I do not assume these occasions compete in opposition to one another,” Landry stated. “This is a chance to convey a distinct group of individuals on one other course.”

Reporting by The Related Press.

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