NEW ORLEANS \u2014 The LIV Golf League has added a summer tournament in New Orleans for 2026 after Louisiana agreed to pay the Saudi-backed tour $5 million and spend an additional $2.2 million on improvements to the Bayou Oaks course in City Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat an unbelievable opportunity to announce this on the 20th-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,\u201d Gov. Jeff Landry said at an announcement alongside LIV Golf officials and LIV player Bubba Watson.<\/p>\n
New Orleans already has a long-running PGA Tour stop with the Zurich Classic at TPC Louisiana. Watson \u2014 who grew up about three hours away in Pensacola, Florida \u2014 won the Zurich in 2011 and hailed his opportunity to play professionally in New Orleans again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from the Gulf Coast and this is part my home,\u201d Watson said, drawing laughs when he joked about attending many New Orleans Pelicans games wanting to see often-injured NBA star Zion Williamson play. \u201cI still hope for that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson sounded unconcerned about the tournament dates in late June, when heat advisories and thunderstorms are common. June also falls within hurricane season, albeit closer to the beginning. The Zurich usually takes place in April.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first year of it, so the date can always be changed if it does come here multiple years,\u201d Watson said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hot in a lot of places in the summer. … I\u2019ve grown up in the South; I know about heat. We just prepare for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season, a LIV Golf tournament was held in Dallas in late June, when daytime temperatures hovered around 90 degrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to try it out and then we\u2019ll see,\u201d Landry said. \u201cWhether we\u2019ve got to adjust the dates after this go-around, we\u2019ll see. But my objective is to have this be LIV\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louisiana this year provided economic development funding of about $650,000 for marketing and operations to the Zurich Classic. TPC Louisiana also periodically receives state subsidies for course and facility improvements.<\/p>\n
LIV Golf CEO Scott O\u2019Neil declined to get into specifics about how the $5 million Louisiana is paying to host an event compares to the amount of public funding for events held elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the markets are unique,\u201d O\u2019Neil said. \u201cThey all come with their unique challenges and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers said the event is expected to add about $40 million in economic activity to the local economy.<\/p>\n
Landry said the New Orleans agreement \u201cgives us an opportunity to invest\u201d in the course and the over-170-year-old, 1,300-acre City Park \u2014 of the largest urban parks in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a public piece of property,\u201d Landry said. \u201cThis area needs revitalization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landry doesn\u2019t play golf and said he generally has not attended professional tournaments, in part because fans often are expected to be quiet. LIV encourages a livelier fan experience at most tournaments than its rival PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just not me,\u201d Landry said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I love LIV Golf. No \u2018quiet\u2019 signs. It\u2019s a party.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landry dismissed concerns about whether New Orleans, which has a metro-area population of just more than 1 million and few corporate headquarters, could adequately support both a PGA Tour and LIV Golf event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think those events compete against each other,\u201d Landry said. \u201cThis is an opportunity to bring a different group of people on another course.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS \u2014 The LIV Golf League has added a summer tournament in New Orleans for 2026 after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-102239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}